<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Homebound by Rebldomakr</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24912058">Homebound</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebldomakr/pseuds/Rebldomakr'>Rebldomakr</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lost + found au [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hedwig the Cat, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Nothing Actually Happens but it's implied it could have, Orphan Harry Potter, Random Snake for Snakey Purposes, Rich Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:00:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,605</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24912058</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebldomakr/pseuds/Rebldomakr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a well-meant call, Harry is brought into the system. He's kicked out home after home, until he finally lands at the Hermes' Home for Children. When Minerva McGonagall delivers his letter and welcomes him to the magical world, Harry doesn't hesitate to start using the gold under his control to get out of the children's home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter &amp; Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall &amp; Harry Potter, Sirius Black &amp; Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lost + found au [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>296</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. At the beginning...</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Uh, so? Currently this fic is like, at over 30,000 before full edits are done. I'm editing it in chunks and posting them as chapters, because I'm hella impatient. I don't have a lot to do right now and this fic is basically acting as a cleaner, because I'm struggling to write out a lot of the smut and sad-ish/serious shit I've been trying to write to wrap up some fics and a bunch of wips. I'm not promising any actual schedule for posting - I'll be slamming shit through as much as I can lmfao</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a family that prided themselves in being normal, the Dursley’s were the most abnormal family in the neighborhood despite the pretty picture they painted. There was the hardworking, businessman husband and the pleasant, homemaking wife, with their blond-haired toddler that had cherub cheeks and blond hair. There was, however, no denying the oddity in the family considering the certain background of that homemaking wife.</p><p>After all, they also housed their nephew.</p><p>Mrs. Dursley said she took in her nephew after her sister and brother-in-law died in a car crash. Her brother-in-law was, apparently, an alcoholic. Though, she never actually said so. It was a rumor, but one they were certain was true. The nephew was, after all, a strange sort.</p><p>His name was Harry Potter. He was not like the Dursley’s. He was shorter than Dudley, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley and the same age as Harry, and not prettily petite like Mrs. Dursley. Nor was he even close to as robust as Mr. Dursley, who was certainly a large man. He was scrawny and seemingly frail, even if he had the usual child-level energy. His hair wasn’t fine blond or brown hair, but instead very thick, very messy, black hair.</p><p>Though, it wasn’t his appearance that made him so odd.</p><p>It wasn’t his intellect. He wasn’t particularly bright or dumb, though sometimes he did appear a bit daft. He daydreamed often, see, but that wasn’t what made him odd, either.</p><p>Some would say it was his eyes.</p><p>Mrs. Adley on 8 Privet Drive swore it was the boy’s eyes. She said, when she looked into them, it’s like she could see the Devil himself. She would swear up and down that she could see two people staring back at her.</p><p>She wasn’t the only one. Other people said the same, even if they only ever saw the back of the boy’s head.</p><p>To be absolutely honest, no one could present an actual argument over what made him so strange. It was just a feeling everyone had. The boy was odd. And on Privet Drive, any stray from normalcy was something every housewife was very concerned about. Their husbands only commented their pity; Poor Mr. Dursley, having to take care of a boy like that. They heard enough, from wives and neighbors, to know he wasn’t any good.</p><p>Except for old Ms. Sweet.</p><p>Ms. Sweet was a widow who moved to the neighborhood after deciding to downsize after her husband’s death. She attended the book club every week and met often with other housewives, sharing old stories and recipes. She liked the gossip, unless it had to do with Harry Potter. She didn’t like it when people spoke down about the boy.</p><p>Harry was, to her, just like every other seven-year-old she had ever seen. The only strange thing was that he couldn’t make any friends.</p><p>Privately, she thought it was because of all the parents around the neighborhood that wouldn’t like it if their children were friends with him.</p><p>It was the boy’s loneliness, maybe, that made Ms. Sweet come out of her home as he walked by. She called out his name and waved her hand. She wanted him closer to her, to talk.</p><p>“What is it, ma’am?” Harry asked, cautiously, as he came nearer.</p><p>Ms. Sweet didn’t blame him. Often, people blamed random mishaps on Harry even if he wasn’t anywhere near. Missing gnome, too much junk mail, a cat staying outside for too long, or even the tomatoes not growing in their garden.</p><p>“Come with me, boy,” She said.</p><p>She led him around her home, right into the backyard.</p><p>When they stood side by side, overlooking the yard, Ms. Sweet said, “I’m old. I need some help watering my flowers and grass every day,” As though she didn’t have gardeners who came by twice a week to maintain it for her in the morning.</p><p>Her backyard was obviously well maintained. Flowerbeds and bushes, a vine-covered gazebo, and a running, shiny white stone fountain decorated it. Even her side of the fence somehow seemed just more perfect than most others. Harry had only ever seen it in glimpses, through fenceposts, or by happenstance if he looked just the right way when walking by.</p><p>“I can do that,” Harry said. “I do it all the time for Aunt Petunia,”</p><p>“Front and back,” She said. “But if you do it for me, I’ll give you five pounds every day,”</p><p>Harry’s eyes widened. Five pounds was a lot. It was enough for a child to spoil themselves on sweets and junk food from the nearest store. It was twenty pence for a can of soda. He hadn’t ever bought himself more than what he could get by finding loose change abandoned on the ground or in couch cushions.</p><p>Ms. Sweet smiled when Harry’s head nodded eagerly.</p><p>So, Harry came by every day just before lunchtime. He watered her backyard and front throughout the entire summer of 1988. He worked as diligently as one could with such quick work. When he was done, he would knock on her door and she would give him his five pounds. Then, she would invite him inside for a sandwich or a snack or a glass of lemonade, or a combination of the three.</p><p>After a week, he began to hang around inside long after he did his work.</p><p>She would play music off her record player and teach him how to waltz. She let him take his fill of the sweets she baked in her oven after she made sure he ate a proper lunch of course. He could open up her fridge, like this was his home, and eat any of the fruit inside. He ate raspberries and strawberries and oranges and grapefruit, overdosing himself on the sweet food like he was eating candy. If she wasn’t playing music, he’d sit in front of her TV and watch whatever show she was.</p><p>At home, Harry put every note he got into a jar he hid inside of a ripped seam on his pillow. He was saving for something. He didn’t know what yet, but it would be something. He was turning eight years old this summer. His eighth could be a lucky number, he thought, and he could buy himself a gift.</p><p>On his birthday, however, Ms. Sweet gave him a gift. It was a Walkman, complete with a set of headphones. She drove him out to the nearest store after he opened it and allowed him to pick out any three tapes he wanted. He chose <em>Hysteria</em> by Def Leppard and <em>Blizzard of Ozz</em> by Ozzy Osbourne, because the album pictures looked nice, and Ms. Sweet picked out <em>Bad</em> by Michael Jackson to add on when she decided she needed more than just two tapes.</p><p>“Music is an amazing thing, Harry. It’s enjoyment for the sake of enjoyment, the easiest understood art I’ve ever seen,” She told him.</p><p>That night, Harry laid down on the cot in his cupboard and picked a tape at random to listen to as he fell asleep. When the guitar began to thrum in his ears, he found himself drifting off to sleep. It was the best dream he ever had, though he couldn’t remember it minutes after he woke up.</p><p>Summer neared an end and so did Harry’s position as Ms. Sweet’s waterer. However, she gave him another task. She liked to have home-chopped wood for her fireplace, but hadn’t enjoyed it since she moved to Privet Drive. She bought chunks of wood and set him up outside. He chopped away, learning how to swing the axe efficiently enough to carry logs inside to put into the fireplace.</p><p>When Harry managed to start a fire with a used-up starter, one that hadn’t worked easy in ages, Ms. Sweet laughed and gave him a twenty pound note as a reward.</p><p>He began to help Ms. Sweet do other things. He helped her clean, sweeping or dusting, and he also helped her make dinner by chopping onions, peeling garlic, or mashing the potatoes himself.</p><p>Some night, after school, Harry found himself staying at her house until he had to go back to the Dursley’s to go to sleep under his cupboard.</p><p>Weeks slipped into slow feeling but fast passing months.</p><p>When Halloween came around, Ms. Sweet gave him a costume and sent him out to go trick or treating despite the Dursley’s strong disapproval for Harry walking around the neighborhood with a witch’s hat on top of his head and a stick he’d picked up from the ground to be his wand. They never said anything to Ms. Sweet, about anything she did with him or for him.</p><p>On Christmas Day, while Dudley happily ripped into his many gifts, Harry walked over the shoveled sidewalk to Ms. Sweet’s where she gave him a bowl of hot soup before telling him to check under the tree for gifts that were left for him.</p><p>Harry got five new tapes, five new shirts, two new pairs of jeans, and a pair of brand new shoes. The newness of everything he found being told was his, had shocked him to the point he had almost begun to cry and he didn’t know why.</p><p>“Come have some cookies and cocoa with me,” Ms. Sweet said.</p><p>As much as Harry did so enjoy Ms. Sweet.</p>
<hr/><p>It was the middle of February, days after Valentine’s Day, in 1989. <em>Diary of a Madman</em> was playing out of Harry’s headphones while he did his schoolwork. Aunt Petunia had told him, quite sternly, that he had to do his schoolwork properly otherwise his teacher would want to meet with her again for his subpar grades. She threatened to take his music away and to no longer let him out to see Ms. Sweet, until he did his homework right.</p><p>So, he worked.</p><p>Harry did often just rush through his homework before class started, choosing to spend his hours after school with Ms. Sweet and avoiding anything to do with school. He didn’t like school the way he liked his music or just relaxing somewhere he wasn’t getting yelled at for existing.</p><p>“You’ll pray for your death, but he’s in no hurry,” Harry sang softly, scratching out his messy handwriting as he tried to keep his mind focused on the math he was supposed to be doing.</p><p>After this, he had to read from a book. It was a dumb book, he thought, but he knew he’d have to read it because there was supposed to be a quiz on it tomorrow. If he failed it, like he had failed the last two quizzes, Aunt Petunia definitely wouldn’t be very happy with him.</p><p>Then, suddenly, a hand clasped Harry’s shoulder and gently shook him. It drew him out the world he had made – of music trying to soothe the headache created by an endless drone of numbers – and he looked up, pulling off his headphone to twist his head around.</p><p>A man stood above him. He was dressed in a suit and he had a forcefully soft smile on his face.</p><p>“Hello Harry, my name is Gary,” The man introduced himself. He sounded, almost immediately, like the kind lady who sometimes visited Harry at school and asked him about the Dursley’s.</p><p>“Hi,” Harry said. “What is it?” He asked, confused. “Did Aunt Petunia need something?”</p><p>Gary’s smile stayed the same as he shook his head. “No.” He held his hand out, offering it to Harry to help him stand up. “I’m taking you somewhere much better than here, Harry,”</p><p>“I don’t understand.” Harry frowned, everything in him scrunching him. He had a sudden desire to get away, even though the man wasn’t obviously dangerous.</p><p>He had nowhere else to do than the Dursley’s. Maybe, Ms. Sweet, but he doubted that even she would want him around all the time.</p><p>“Why don’t you go on and pack your things up, okay?” Gary said. “I’m going to stay right by you and make sure you’re safe. Don’t worry about your aunt or uncle,”</p><p>It would turn out that someone in the neighborhood – despite their apprehension of strange Harry Potter – had called the authorities. And it was Harry’s admission, to the lady who visited him at school, that he lived in the cupboard under the stairs that caused the most immediate fire to come down on the Dursley household.</p><p>For as normal as Mr. and Mrs. Dursley tried to be, they didn’t look it when Gary the police officer led Harry to the same lady who talked to him at school waiting by a car outside of 4 Privet Drive.</p><p>“Hello Harry,” The lady smiled.</p><p>She helped Harry load his things – so few in number, all fit into his backpack for school – into the car. She told him that it was okay, before telling him to get in and buckle up.</p><p>As the pulled from the driveway, Harry could see Gary’s skin turn red as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon yelled at him from where they stood on the grass.</p><p>After that – Harry never saw his aunt and uncle ever again. He never saw Ms. Sweet again, either, though he did have a jar full of the money she’d given him since he started working for her crammed into his backpack.</p><p>The last he saw of Ms. Sweet was her standing on her front step, waving at him as the car drove by.</p><p>The first home he stayed at was with Victoria and Hanson Carpenter. They were a nice couple who struggled to have children. They turned to adoption, hoping to give a child who needed it a home. They gave him his own room and let him eat however much he wanted during any meal of the day. Victoria read him bedtime stories at night and Hanson taught him how to play chess.</p><p>Then, Victoria got pregnant. Three days after the couple found out, they sent Harry away.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Harry, but we don’t have the time to take care of you with a baby,” Victoria said to him before he was loaded into a car and taken somewhere else.</p><p>Harry didn’t stick in any house after that.</p><p>He lived with Janice Gardener for three weeks, before he accidentally started a fire in the kitchen when he was getting yelled at he struggled to make her bacon for the morning.</p><p>He lasted another three weeks with Oliver and Jody Wilson. He struggled to sleep at night, after Mr. Wilson came into his room and sat down on the edge of bed to talk. He didn’t like the way the man’s hand felt on his thigh. At the end of the three weeks, he was sleeping underneath the bed. He finally got sent away when Mr. Wilson burst into flames when he was trying to get Harry out from underneath the bed.</p><p>Three weeks would be his best for a while after that.</p><p>After so many homes and so many failures, the system gave up.</p><p>Harry was sent to Hermes’ Home for Children a week before his tenth birthday.</p><p>The home was, once upon a time, an orphanage. When the world changed, the church in charge of the orphanage put the building up for sale. It was bought by Leopold Hermes, a wealthy man who funded it into a proper children’s home. He had been an orphan himself, apparently, and took it upon himself to help all the other little orphans with nowhere to go.</p><p>Harry’s room was small and cubical. It had a bed, a desk, a dresser, and that was it.</p><p>The woman who ran the home went solely by Madam Charlotte. She didn’t like Harry the moment he came walking into the building and was brought to his room. Older students made a game of blaming Harry for mishaps that happened around the home – a fire in the bathroom or a dead rat being cut open and its blood drawn out on the wall.</p><p>She stole his tapes and crushed most of what he had as punishment for doing so many wrongs in such a short time. He managed to hide the rest and kept his Walkman out of her way, but he continued to lose privileges until he got into a fight with one of the boys at the home.</p><p>The boy went by the name of Ghost. Harry somehow managed to throw him back hard enough for Ghost to break a rib on the brick wall outside. It was enough, though, for Harry to be left alone, finally.</p><p>Madam Charlotte still watched him, but no one blamed him for anything again. Harry kept to himself, too.</p><p>Over time, Harry adjusted. He worked in town when he could, normally after school. He swept at the barbershop and did the dishes at a small pub willing to let him in before hours to catch up with their chores. Sometimes, he worked in the graveyard and helped clean headstones. He saved every note and coin he got, with the hopes that when he was a legal adult, he’d be able to have his own place as soon as he could leave the children’s home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Let me know what you think? I promise, future chapters are going to have a lot more dialogue and more action lmfao</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Professor McGonagall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>unbetaed, baby</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hermes’ Home for Children sat in Clackson, a town in England just over twenty miles from London. The main building was plain brick, with two other buildings standing just behind it, all surrounded by grass and the property line declared by a wrought iron fence. It was owned by a philanthropic organization started decades ago by a orphan turned businessman with a nice, noble wife and happy, healthy children seeking to make life easier for children without families like his. However, when Minerva McGonagall walked past the gate, she saw only a place where muggles stuck unwanted or slightly troublesome children.</p><p>This wasn’t the first children’s home she had to visit. The muggleborns from these places would later struggle to properly grasp their magic, as lost in the magical world as they were in the muggle, with hardly anyone to actually turn to for support. Poor, young witches and wizards she tried to keep a kind eye on. She knew they needed it, knew they deserved someone willing to offer them support. She still got letters from those who had adjusted to the wizarding world, all of them grateful and happy that she had given her influence.</p><p>She never thought she would have to do that with the Boy-Who-Lived.</p><p>Almost a full decade ago, she knew not to trust the Dursley family. She didn’t know how Harry ended up here, though apparently Dumbledore had known because he had called her into his office before addresses were even being written. She liked to be right most of the time, but she didn’t like to be right now as she surveyed the children’s home.</p><p>Minerva didn’t get far before a woman dressed in plain grey interrupted her. The muggle woman seemed tired, with bags under her eyes and a pale face. Her shoes had mud drying over them, including the laces. Despite the uniform seeming desperate to portray something put together, with their matching colors, the woman looked everything but.</p><p>“Who are you?” The muggle asked.</p><p>“My name is Minerva McGonagall. I’m here for Harry Potter.” Minerva reached pulled a letter from her purse – she was dressed as muggle for the day’s visit, she knew the need to look accordingly for the muggles – and held it up. “I am a representative of Hogwarts, a public school which his parents had attended. He’s to attend, thanks to an application they put in at birth,”</p><p>“Potter?” The woman shook her head. “That boy’s from some money, huh?” She laughed. “Suppose I’m not surprised. He’s got that air about him sometimes. Still, I don’t know how that tuition’s going to get paid unless he’s got some money left to him,”</p><p>“I’m sure his parents left him enough to attend our school,” Minerva said. “May you-“</p><p>“I’ll take you in,” The woman said, waving her hand dismissively at the witch. “You’ll have to talk to Madam Charlotte first, though. She runs this place,”</p><p>The woman yelled out at a group of people she had been playing with that she would be right back, then told Minerva to follow her.</p><p>There were three buildings a part of the children’s home. The muggle woman brought Minerva into the largest building. The entrance hall was small and dim, despite being large enough to hold some couches and a grand stairway leading upstairs. The muggle led the witch to a hallway leading off the side, into a narrow hall dotted with doors.</p><p>“You know, Potter’s a bunch of trouble,” The muggle said. “You finer folk are going to have a time with him. You’ve ever had kids like him in your school before, you think?”</p><p>“We’ve had students from children’s’ homes before, or children without their biological parents,” Minerva said. Their world had gone through a war. Though, as time passed, there were fewer and fewer children with missing parents or close family members. The previous gloom that hung over their school had long dissipated and the number of children directly affected by the war had shrunk. One more year and it would be the first set of students who were born after the war.</p><p>“Oh, you’ve never had a boy like Potter. He’s a strange sort. If it wasn’t for Madam Charlotte, he’d still be listening to that bad music. The type with the devils and whatnot,” She said. “He works in town, don’t know why anyone hires him to do anything except out of pity, but he saved up and bought this nasty shirt. Madam Charlotte found it, of course, and got rid of it,”</p><p>The muggle took a turn, into an even narrower hallway. They pass a stairway, then go down about a half-dozen steps.</p><p>“How is he strange?” Minerva asked.</p><p>“There are stories, about how he ended up here,” The muggle said. “See, we normally take teens, kids who have no chance of being taken in. Potter hadn’t lasted at a home for very long. He’s nearly been committed of arson, but he got sent here due to his age,”</p><p>“Arson?” Minerva knew cases of magical children causing fires with their accidental magic could happen, it was just a bit rarer. Immature magic presented itself in small incidents, but fires could be caused by stress or worse.</p><p>“Fires, some of them, no one knows how he made them,” She said. “Oh, up ahead now is Madam Charlotte’s office,”</p><p>The muggle came up to a door at the very end of the hall. It was dark and worn, the paint on it chipping off in flakes. She knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more.</p><p>A muffled voice yelled out, “Come in!” The woman nodded and opened the door, stepping inside.</p><p>Minerva peered inside.</p><p>The office was large but cramped. The walls were lined with filing cabinets, crushing bookshelves that were falling apart behind them. An old, grimy, unmoving portrait hung behind a metal desk, up above a muggle woman who sat on a small chair. On the desk, among the papers and files, was a dirty, crystal cut ashtray.</p><p>“Ma’am,” The woman began. “This is Minerva McGonagall. She’s here for Potter,”</p><p>“Potter?” The muggle who Minerva easily assumed was Madam Charlotte chuckled. “What did he do, hm?”</p><p>“He didn’t do anything,” Minerva said immediately. “I’m from a school. His parents-“</p><p>“We don’t have any money to send him off to somewhere fancy,” Madam Charlotte said.</p><p>“If he didn’t inherit any money from his parents, we have scholarships available,” Minerva was quickly finding herself annoyed by these muggles.</p><p>No one here knew Harry Potter’s importance or his status. He was incredibly likely to do great things with his life, but these muggles, without any understanding of Harry’s magic or a world apart from theirs, made it seem easy to dismiss Harry and just-</p><p>“Mary, leave us, please,” Madam Charlotte ordered.</p><p>The other muggle woman nodded and left. She closed the door as she did.</p><p>Minerva took a step forward. “Hogwarts would be taking Harry in as a boarding student since we are a school based in Scotland,” She said. “His parents applied for him to attend when he was born, as is tradition. Hogwarts is a very exclusive school, you have to understand. Our students are the children and grandchildren of alumni. His parents attended, as did his grandparents, and so on before them,”</p><p>“Sounds a little too prestigious for a kid like Potter,” She said. “Listen, Miss…McGonagall, is it? Well, Potter has become a troublesome child. You should be a little careful about taking a kid like that into your school. There are many children here that deserve a second chance. He isn’t one,”</p><p>“I don’t see how you’ve deemed yourself the judge and jury on the matter of Harry’s character,” Minerva said. “I apologize, but Hogwarts won’t be reconsidering his placement at his school,”</p><p>Madam Charlotte shook her head. “You can take him. It’ll be a relief to not worry about him running free,” She said. “I was just trying to warn you, understand? Don’t be surprised when you have to expel him. I’ve heard stories about him before he was here, you should know-“</p><p>“No.” Minerva tightened her hand over her purse, trying to relieve the tension trying to build in her shoulders. “I have no interest in tales about him. I would prefer to meet him and discuss his attendance at Hogwarts,”</p><p>“I’ll take you to his room, then,” She said. “See if he’s there. It’s the summer, so he’s off in town working,”</p><p>“What does he do?” Minerva asked.</p><p>“He sweeps, mows, whatever the people pay him to do.” Madam Charlotte stood up and walked around her desk. “Follow me,”</p><p>The building seemed consistently dim, as Minerva was led back through the hallway and then up the grand staircase. There was the occasional child – teenager, to be more accurate – that the home was supposed to be housing, but for the most part, the halls seemed to be deserted. Most doors were tightly shut, except for very few that were wide open with quietly speaking children inside.</p><p>Every floor up, it got hotter and hotter. When they went to the second floor, the uppermost floor, Minerva felt as though she couldn’t breathe without dragging dust down into her lungs.</p><p>Room 324 had a tightly shut door, but Madam Charlotte stopped at it.</p><p>Minerva knew it was Harry’s room, because of the address on his letter.</p><p>Room 324, Hermes’ Home for Children, Clackson, Surrey, England.</p><p>“Summer heat doesn’t bother him too much.” Madam Charlotte knocked.</p><p>There wasn’t any answer, but the muggle woman didn’t knock again. After a few beats, the door swung open.</p><p>Minerva’s eyes fell slow.</p><p>Harry Potter was short for his age and very thin. His skin was pale, but there was red on his cheeks like the sun had beat down too hard on them and his skin just couldn’t tan right. While she knew James tanned fine, she remembered Lily’s cheeks burning red like roses after spending too long outside during the summer. He had James’ messy, thick black hair and the same cheeks. His eyes were hers, too, that bright, clear green, just like how his mother’s had been.</p><p>Only, when Minerva looked into Harry’s eyes she saw something she never did in Lily’s. They were burning.</p><p>“Potter, this is Minerva McGonagall,” Madam Charlotte said. “She’s here from a school, for you,”</p><p>When Harry looked at her, Minerva almost choked. The boy, in his baggy black shirt with its faded print and torn jeans, had eyes like a man across from her on the battlefield. She swore, in his eyes, she saw something underneath the fire. She could guess, in the moment, that it was just the manifestation of Harry’s magic thanks to that troublesome character she’d heard so much about.</p><p>“I would like to talk with him in private, please,” Minerva said. “If that’s okay with you, Mr. Potter,”</p><p>“I guess it is,” Harry said.</p><p>Madam Charlotte sighed. “I’ll leave you both alone, but I’ll be back after I do some paperwork to see you out,”</p><p>As the muggle woman walked away, Minerva asked, “May I come in?”</p><p>“You may,” Harry said and stepped backward into the room. “I mean, it’s not like you weren’t going to come in anyways,”</p><p>The boy definitely possessed somewhat of an attitude. Minerva remembered young James, who had his own attitude problems and also remembered James’ friends. The ragtag team of misfits that the four had been. Harry would’ve belonged among them.</p><p>Harry’s bedroom was small, with only a single window. The curtains were drawn tight, but Minerva could tell that foil had been taped over the glass to keep the sunlight out. There was only the essential furniture in the room; A bed, a dresser, and a small desk. The only source of light in the room were candles, one on the dresser, and another on the desk.</p><p>Thanks to the candles, she could see the few posters pinned up on the walls and the other things in the room that made it clearly Harry’s. A radio, a music player that Minerva recognized from being owned by other muggle students in the past before they inevitably broke, brass figurines on the windowsill, the aforementioned posters which depicted some…very unpleasant things, and even a broken teacup sitting on top of the dresser.</p><p>“What do you want?” Harry sat down on his bed, looking up at her.</p><p>“My name is Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, and Transfiguration professor,” She reintroduced herself.</p><p>“Transfiguration?” He frowned. “What? Are you trying to play a joke on me?”</p><p>“No,” She said. “Let me demonstrate.” She opened her purse and sank her hand down within, grasping the handle of her wand before pulling it out. She pointed her wand at the still open door and flicked her wrist, wordlessly closing it. A second flick and she placed a locking spell over the door.</p><p>Harry’s eyes widened, but he schooled his features. “Neat trick,” He said. “I don’t know who hired you to try to make me think I’m insane, but-“</p><p>“Harry.” Minerva raised her hand, wand pointing safely at the ceiling. “Has anything ever happened to you, that you just couldn’t explain away with simple logic?”</p><p>The boy wizard was quiet, so Minerva continued. “I heard something about fire.” She sat down on the bed next to Harry, resting her wand over her lap. “Can you tell me something about that?”</p><p>“None of it was my fault,” Harry whispered. “I told them that and no one ever listened to me. They think I’m, like, a bloody pyromaniac,”</p><p>“Accidental magic can sometimes surface itself in very destructive ways,” Minerva said. “Yes, for the most part, it’s mostly for self-sufficiency or survival. However, sometimes, survival stretches into the need for offense. That’s when young witches and wizards, like you, cause explosions or start fires. No, Harry, it wasn’t your fault. I cannot imagine the distress you were in-“</p><p>“Nothing happened to me!” Harry snapped.</p><p>Minerva frowned. “Harry, please, don’t interrupt. I wasn’t saying that anything, in particular, happened,” She said. “I’ve had experience with children coming from this system, like you. Children with bad parents or unwelcome families. You aren’t alone,”</p><p>Though, she was a little concerned about the outburst. Now, Harry looked down at his lap quiet, his cheeks burning even redder with an embarrassed blush. She wanted to ask why he had gone to the defensive so quickly, but she had experience with all children from all backgrounds. Pressing for information like that only made them draw further into themselves.</p><p>“Once, an older boy here, he tried to have a fight with me. Something happened and he flew back. Like, the air around me exploded. He had to go to the hospital,” Harry said, quiet. “Was that…Magic?”</p><p>“It was,” Minerva said. “I know being around muggles can make you feel like you’ve gone insane, but magic is not a lie I’m spinning,”</p><p>“Muggles?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Non-magical folk,” Minerva said.</p><p>Harry’s nose scrunched up. “Muggles, huh?” He looked around his room. “How are you so sure I’m not a muggle, then? How did you even know how to find me?”</p><p>“Your parents were witch and wizard. Both were, in fact, my students when they attended Hogwarts and later, my friends during the war,” Minerva said. “Your father was a pureblood, meaning he came from a magical family that could trace its lineage back many generations. Your mother was a muggleborn, meaning she came from a muggle family, hence your relation to the Dursley’s,”</p><p>“What does that make me, then?” Harry asked.</p><p>“You’re a halfblood,” Minerva answered. “None of that truly matters, Harry. The only people who care about your blood status are purists, people who lost the last war. I like to believe that they’re dying out,”</p><p>Harry was silent, staring at the wand on Minerva’s lap.</p><p>“There’s much to tell you,” She said. “But, I believe it’ll be best to go question by question. Whatever you ask, I’ll answer. My duty, as a professor at Hogwarts and as an older witch, is to help you learn about the magical world. Now, I have something for you.” She revealed the letter and held it out for Harry.</p><p>He took the envelope and examined the front. The Hogwarts-specific address, then he flipped it over and ran his fingers over the wax seal imprinted with the Hogwarts School crest.</p><p>As the young wizard began to pick off the seal, Minerva continued, “There is one very important thing you do need to know. Ten years ago, the wizarding world was submerged in war. It was based, for the most part, here in Britain. You-Know-Who, an incredibly powerful Dark wizard, led his followers, the Death Eaters, as a Dark Lord against the British Ministry of Magic and others. This war was ultimately the cause of your parent’s death. They refused to side with him during the war. Even though your mother was a muggleborn and he was a proponent of blood purity, he offered her and your father a place in his army. No one ever lived to tell him no, not for long,”</p><p>Harry pulled out the parchment and began to push through them, eyes running over the script as Minerva talked.</p><p>“He killed them?” Harry asked. “Just because they said they didn’t want to join him?”</p><p>“Yes,” Minerva said. “After he killed them, he went to kill you, and, something amazing happened,”</p><p>“What?” Harry stared at her, parchment already scrunching in his hands.</p><p>“No one has ever survived the Killing Curse, except for you. Somehow, when you were a year old, the Killing Curse rebound and killed him instead. You ended our war. To the magical world, you’re known as the Boy-Who-Lived.” She finished.</p><p>“I’m known as something?” Harry laughed. “You’re kidding. You’re making it sound like…”</p><p>“You are famous in our world,” Minerva said. “There won’t be a single person who won’t know your name or your scar,”</p><p>Harry touched his forehead, underneath his long bangs that hung over it. His hair would serve a good purpose, in hiding it if he wanted to keep discreet before the world got used to his appearance. “The Dursley’s told me I got it from a car crash,” He said.</p><p>“About ten years ago, we entrusted you with them. I hadn’t liked it at the same after spending a day watching them, they didn’t seem like a good sort, but I was convinced,” Minerva admitted. “It’s clear, now, that I should have fought harder,”</p><p>She took pleasure in knowing Albus went to the Dursley’s to have a talk with them when he first heard, through a contact in the neighborhood, that Harry was taken away. There was yet another visit when they discovered Harry was now at a children’s home, with seemingly no attempts made by them to get him back after they made a promise to. Albus was a good, patient man, but he was a sight when upset.</p><p>They all thought Harry would be safe with the Dursley’s. They were all sure that he would be much safer in the muggle world than the magical, especially after the direct aftermath of the war. It almost hurt to see the boy, who was basically their savior from a war they were losing, in the situation he was in now.</p><p>“That’s insane.” Harry laughed. “How am I supposed to believe all of this?”</p><p>“The best proof is going to be showing you,” Minerva said. “Tomorrow, I’ll take you to London to get your school supplies,”</p><p>“I don’t think I can afford all this stuff,” Harry said.</p><p>“Don’t worry about the cost. Your parents left you a vault at the wizarding bank in London. If there, for whatever reason, isn’t enough, you’ll have access to a fund provided to all children who need it. Though I should tell you, your tuition was paid in full years ago in advance by the former Ministry of Magic,” Minerva said. “Our world will likely do whatever possible to help you, Harry,”</p><p>“This is really hard. To take in, I mean. It feels like you’re just…” Harry trailed off.</p><p>“I believe, muggles say, taking the piss?” Minerva smiled. “I understand. You’ll learn it all, with time,”</p><p>“So, wait,” Harry licked his lips. “Does this mean I get to leave this place?”</p><p>“Hogwarts is a boarding school, but during the summer holiday, we don’t house students. However, I’ll remind you, you’re the Boy-Who-Lived. I don’t doubt you’ll have any problem finding a place to live, though you will need to get permission from the Ministry because you’re underage,”</p><p>She couldn’t think of a family in the wizarding world that wouldn’t happily accept Harry Potter as one of their own. Even though some would with selfish reasons would accept, there were others she knew would do it out of the simple goodness in their hearts. There was the matter of Harry’s involvement in the muggle world. They have a strong record of him – the Ministry would need to come in and erase everything, including their memories of him, for it to be done lawfully.</p><p>“So, basically, I’m stuck here for the summer,” Harry said. “But next summer, I won’t have to?”</p><p>Minerva nodded. “I told the Madam Charlotte that Hogwarts is a public school and that your parents attended. If there are any issues, I’m allowed to use magic to persuade her,” She said.</p><p>“How do I get the money my parents left me, then? For the supplies?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to London. There, is Diagon Alley. And in Diagon Alley, is Gringotts, the wizarding world’s bank,” Minerva said. “And there, your parent’s gold waits to become yours,”</p><p>They continued to talk until Madam Charlotte returned. Minerva had given Harry a blood pop from her purse and answered as many questions as she could during the short time they had together for the day.</p><p>At hearing the knock, Minerva removed the locking spell and put her wand away. Harry opened the door as she stood up.</p><p>“I’ll be returning tomorrow, to take Harry to London for his supplies, including his uniform.” Minerva walked forward.</p><p>“I can’t permit so much unsupervised activity, especially not for Potter-“ Madam Charlotte started..</p><p>“Only I have the means the help him gain access to the funds he needs. I’ll be the one taking him.” Minerva was already pulling her wand back out of her purse. She didn’t like having to place charms on muggles, but it was part of her job of making sure all magical children got what they needed to attend including the freedom to go to Diagon Alley and to, eventually, King’s Cross.</p><p>“If you’re to take him, you’ll have to agree to take someone with,” Madam Charlotte said.</p><p>Minerva pointed her wand right into the muggle woman’s face. Before she could react, she cast a series of basic charms. The woman’s eyes became dazed. During that time, Minerva slid her wand back away.</p><p>“Now, I’ll be back tomorrow to pick Harry up to go to London,” Minerva said.</p><p>“Of course.” Madam Charlotte nodded, suddenly turning around and walking off while shaking her head and muttering under her breath.</p><p>Harry was wide-eyed as Minerva bid him farewell and left.</p>
<hr/><p>The professors’ private dining room was hardly ever used outside of the summer months. It was the perfect space for them to gather and discuss their lesson plans over shared meals throughout the day. Not everyone was always there, but by the time letters were sent out all professors were at Hogwarts once a day.</p><p>McGonagall still owned her home in Hogsmeade, but she hardly ever went. She stayed at Hogwarts year-round. She knew Severus Snape, who did the same, appreciated the company even if he wasn’t always exactly open with it. She also frequently had tea with Rubeus Hagrid, the groundskeeper, who lived on Hogwarts grounds all year.</p><p>Shortly after five o’clock, after Minerva ended her meeting with Albus where she told him about her visit to the children’s home, she went straight for the dining room.</p><p>Quirinus Quirrell was talking with Pomona Sprout about garlic, which was the latter seemed much more invested in than the former. Filius Flitwick was at a table with Bathsheda Babbling and the new Arithmancy professor, who Minerva admittedly couldn’t remember the name of yet. The Arithmancy professors only ever lasted a few years at a time, no more than a decade, before they were off doing very important work. No even noticed, compared to the constant changing of hands of the Defense Against the Dark Arts position.</p><p>She sat down across from a silent Severus Snape, who was reading from a stack of parchment and certainly not listening to Quirinus’ conversation with Pomona. The man was still much like he’d been as a boy; Painfully nosy though he was always secretive with most of the information he obtained.</p><p>“I delivered Harry’s letter today,” She said.</p><p>Severus didn’t glance up. “You mean our incoming celebrity?” He moved the stack of parchment slightly forward and sat up straight, arms folding over themselves on his chest.</p><p>“He grew up in a children’s home, Severus,” Minerva said. “I think he might scare a few of the children here,”</p><p>“Like all those children raised up by those horrible muggles are?” Severus drawled. “For some reason, I can guess why you’re talking to me,”</p><p>Minerva pinched her lips.</p><p>“I suppose I’m not surprised Petunia didn’t have any interest in raising the boy. I didn’t think she’d give him up,” Severus said. “I never heard the full story of what happened,”</p><p>“Only Albus knows,” Minerva admitted. “That man didn’t want to tell me. Something about treating Harry the same as any other student,”</p><p>“Which we both know isn’t going to happen,” Severus said.</p><p>“No,” She admitted. “But just because of him being the Boy-Who-Lived. You and I are both aware of how both children raised by muggles, in the type of situation he was in, end up in your House,”</p><p>”Potter would be rolling in his grave if his son ended up in Slytherin.” Severus’ mouth twitched slightly up.</p><p>“Harry’s room was darker than your office after a night with a bottle of firewhiskey,” Minerva said. “I admit, I saw some similarities, which is why I want to ask for a favor,”</p><p>“I don’t partake in favoritism.” Severus leaned forward. “What does he look like?”</p><p>“Like James, mostly, except for his eyes. They are so much like Lily’s. I’ve never seen eyes so green other than hers before Harry.” She paused. She thought about the original burn in them, before it was gone just as quickly as it’d been there. “I think I could see his magic in them. I hadn’t seen anything like that in years,”</p><p>“Sounds like a tall tale,” He said.</p><p>“His appearance means nothing to what I’m going to ask you, Severus. It isn’t to favor him, it’s to keep an eye out for him. If he’s in my House, it’ll be fine and I’ll be able to do the same as I always do for children like him, but, if he isn’t…”</p><p>“Any child that needs it, I will provide assistance,” He said.</p><p>“Even the child of James Potter?” She asked quietly.</p><p>He did pause but nodded. “For all children,” He said. “That’s part of my miserable position here, isn’t it?”</p><p>“I suppose so,” She smiled.</p><p>“I still can’t offer special treatment within my own House, if he lands in it,” He said.</p><p>She chuckled. “And you’re never guilty of favoritism, correct?” She asked.</p><p>The smile on Severus’ face looked crooked despite its smallness and briefness of appearance. “Minerva, I never show any favoritism,” He said, sounding mockingly scandalized.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>oop! Hello! We've got 4 parts left and I *checks notes* have 50 more pages on one solid word doc left to edit before this little piece is over. </p><p>So far, I'm super surprised about the return I've gotten so far? Like, damn! I love it lmfao, I'm really hoping it keeps up. This story ~should~ have a sequel because there's going to be a lot of unresolved problems and there's the introduction of a couple of sub-plots here, because this story was originally meant to just be the beginning to the 'first book' of this universe. However, I decided to say 'fuck it' to the idea of seven books. I don't know how long this universe is truly meant to be yet because I only have the basic outline of the main plot drawn up and most of the sub-plots are still being worked out. Meanwhile! I drew out the floorplan of like multiple buildings! Only reason why I'm rambling about this, is because as long as people are interested, I'm going to keep working on this story and I won't stop progressing everything forward. *cough* just saying </p><p>This story was, after all, originally meant as just some writing therapy for myself and some fun writing time. Sooooo, yeah lmfao</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Leaky Cauldron and lots, and lots, of stuff</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>unbetaed</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry woke up and laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling.</p><p>Yesterday, Minerva McGonagall – a woman claiming to be a witch from a school of witches and wizards – came and offered almost undeniable proof that magic was real. Magic, like, the stuff out of the fantasy books and Shakespeare. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wanted him as a student because he was a wizard. He was also famous, apparently, which was something he felt like was definitely a practical joke or something.</p><p>After what was shown, magic had to be real. He couldn’t possibly be as famous as McGonagall said though, right?</p><p>Eventually, Harry dragged himself out of bed. He was supposed to go to London today. He would go to that bank McGonagall mentioned, Gringotts maybe, Harry couldn’t remember for sure. There would, potentially, be money left to him by his parents to then buy all the supplies he needed for school. Things like a cauldron and a wand and robes.</p><p>He didn’t know where in London they sold things like that, but Harry hadn’t been in London for a long time. Even then, he hadn’t gone into any shops except for the grocery.</p><p>Harry picked through his dresser to change out of his pajamas, which were just the clothes he wore yesterday without his jeans pulled on. He found the only pair of jeans he owned without rips in them – though the tears weren’t on purpose, honest, even if he liked them that way. He was always given them in solid denim, but he always somehow managed to rip them up and run them bare. He found a shirt, then, crumbled up and shoved near to the back.</p><p>He stepped a little away from the dresser and changed. When he was done, he grabbed his backpack and emptied it out. He started grabbing what he thought he would need for the journey to London. It was about an hour trip on the train, from what he remembered last seen posted at the train station. He packed his Walkman and couple tapes, which were both well hidden so that Madam Charlotte nor any other worker could take it away from him. They didn’t like the music he listened to. Then again, they didn’t like most of the things he liked to do on principle.</p><p>He grabbed his jar, crammed full of all the money he’d managed to save up over time. He had lost some and was set back more than once. There had been previous families who, in all their oh-so-great kindness, decided to ransack his room when he wasn’t there and emptied it out to pay for his costs.</p><p>There were reasons why he hadn’t been able to fit into a family. No one wanted him.</p><p>Maybe, he thought, it was all just because he was magical. Could they – the muggles, everyone he had ever met except for McGonagall apparently – somehow just know he was different and that was why they couldn’t stand him?</p><p>It was weirdly comforting. He wasn’t just a bad kid. There were reasons why he couldn’t fit into the mold with the rest of them. At the same time, it was almost a sad thought. He wasn’t the only bad kid to ever exist. He thought about all the other kids in this place, who weren’t ever going to get this chance to escape and find an entirely different world that not only would accept them but love them.</p><p>Harry left his room and walked right into a cluster of older boys standing around in the hallway. He couldn’t remember their real names, but he knew what they went by.</p><p>Low Rider was a short boy with a barrel chest and thick legs. He liked to box out at the old warehouse in town, earning money by winning fights. Madam Charlotte never paid any attention to the random bruises and black eyes he would sometimes carry around. He never treated Harry badly, though he sometimes teased him because Harry was still the youngest boy at the home.</p><p>Then, there was Crock. He was thin and quick with large hands – Harry had seen him go in and out of a store, armed with nothing but his hands and managing to get out with a load of goods. He’d been in the home since before Harry and longer than Low Rider. He was getting old, too, Harry knew it wouldn’t be long before he either got kicked out or left on his own free will as his eighteenth birthday neared. He had been one of the few people who hadn’t pitched the blame on Harry for whatever stunt that was pulled.</p><p>Finally – there were two boys Harry barely recognized. He didn’t even know their nicknames, because they were new arrivals. Older, probably only at the home for a couple months before coming of age and leaving. Most of the people at the home weren’t like Harry, completely orphaned. A lot of them had families they were taken from for one reason or another. They had somewhere to go when they outgrew the home.</p><p>“It’s the little maniac!” Low Rider greeted while laughing. “Heard you’re running off to some fancy public school?”</p><p>“Imagine that.” Crock elbowed one of the other two boys. “You guys meet Harry yet? The lad’s got some strength in those arms,”</p><p>“Doesn’t look like it though.” Low Rider grabbed Harry’s arm and lifted it up, to wriggle it like a wet noodle.</p><p>Harry frowned and pulled his arm free, holding it closer to himself. “My parents went there,” He said. “That’s why I’m going. They have a scholarship for kids like me”</p><p>Low Rider whistled. “Fucking hell, imagine that?” He shook his head. “Good luck, little maniac, you’re going to need it. Those fancy folk don’t like kids like us,”</p><p>“Let me know if you wanna know a couple of tricks before you go.” Crock wriggled his fingers. “Those rich cunts oughta be dumb with their shit, right?”</p><p>“Rich girls are always small,” One of the other boys said.</p><p>“Not like Jessica,” Low Rider said. “With those tits-!” He brought his hands up to his chest and groped at air.</p><p>“I’m going,” Harry said. “I’m going to London today to get my supplies,”</p><p>“You heard us, good luck, little maniac,” Crock said.</p><p>Harry went to step forward and Low Rider stopped him. “Hold on,” He said. “Fuck, we’re trying to congratulate you, okay? Don’t need to go running off, not yet. Crock, come on, hand it over,”</p><p>Crock snickered and shoved his large hand into his front pocket, then pulled out a fat leather wallet. “We swiped this off some dude at the train station this morning. We were gonna keep it, but we thought you’d need it more than us.” He tossed the wallet at Harry.</p><p>The wallet was definitely heavy. When Harry opened it, everything was missing except for the cash inside. Most of it was smaller notes, but it was still a lot of money. Maybe as much as he had crammed into his jar.</p><p>“Good luck,” Low Rider said again.</p><p>Harry quietly thanked them and left, heading downstairs to wait out front for McGonagall.</p><p>He pocketed the wallet, feeling somehow – guilty. McGonagall said his parents left him money If they did, he wouldn’t need this money as much as the other boys would. He’d wait and see. If there was a lot, more than enough he would need to get through school and get a home in the magical world, he would give the wallet back to them.</p><p>Outside, Harry sat on the front step waiting. It wasn’t very long, though, before Minerva McGonagall arrived.</p><p>She strode along the main sidewalk, not wearing a dress like she had worn yesterday, but instead had on long, dark green robes with gold thread neatly embroidered into the fabric along the hems. A cloak was draped over her shoulders, in the same color as her robes, with a gold clasp that glinted under the sun.</p><p>The clothes were strange and seemed unsuitable for the current heat beating down from the sun, but maybe magic helped with that.</p><p>“Hello Harry,” She greeted as she got close. “Are you ready?”</p><p>“Uh, yeah.” He stood up. “How are we getting to London?” He asked.</p><p>“We’ll be Apparating,” She said, sticking her arm out. “Don’t worry, I’ve already cast a spell so the muggles can’t see us,”</p><p>“What’s Apparating?” Harry asked, hesitantly listening and grabbing onto her arm.</p><p>“Apparation is the easy way to travel as a witch or wizard,” McGonagall said.</p><p>Then, suddenly, there was a yank in Harry’s stomach. His eyes were wide open as his surroundings seemed to expand out from him. He felt like he was being thrown up and down simultaneously without his body needing to stretch. He lost his balance quick, knees weakening, and when everything was still again after barely a second he immediately collapsed to the ground.</p><p>The ground was hard stone. When he looked around him, he realized he was now in a cramped, dark alley. Grimy brick walls on either side of him, while McGonagall stared down at him.</p><p>“Where are we?” Harry asked. “What happened?” He slowly stood up.</p><p>His balance returned the moment he was standing back straight and his vision, a little blurry though he hadn’t even noticed, cleared.</p><p>“We Apparated into London,” McGonagall said. “Here.” She pointed her wand at Harry’s jeans and ran it over his jeans, muttering something under her breath.</p><p>The wet filth that his jeans had soaked up when he felt vanished. Then, she pointed her wand at Harry’s hands. His palms were lightly scabbed from the ground, too, and another spell was softly cast. His skin healed itself and the dirt on it vanished, too.</p><p>All Harry said was, “Woah,”</p><p>“When you’re older, you’ll be taught how to Apparate and get your license from the Ministry of Magic,” She said, as her wand slid underneath her sleeve, hidden again.</p><p>“A license isn’t completely necessary, but you’ll need one to safely travel long distances and internationally. You’ll learn how that works later on. Now, follow me,”</p><p>Harry followed her out from the alley, into a crowded sidewalk. People were walking in every direction, all of them different from each other in many ways but similar in just as many. McGonagall walked without hesitance between them, so Harry stuck close behind her. It was only a short walk before she came to an old looking pub that looked out of place between two nice, well-kept buildings.</p><p>“This is the Leaky Cauldron,” McGonagall said before she pushed the door open. “Are you hungry?”</p><p>“A little,” Harry admitted before he took his first step into the pub after the witch.</p><p>“Then, we’ll stop now for breakfast.” She walked through the old pub and stopped at a booth in the very corner.</p><p>As Harry followed her, his head turned and twisted. His eyes were stuck on everything in the pub. A man sat at a table in the middle arguing loudly with a tall, green-skinned individual. Behind them, a woman tapping her wand over a book to turn the page while she sipped a cup of tea. Furthermore, a bar where, along the counter, sat men in robes in various states drinking tea and mugs of juice to large glasses full of liquor lit on fire.</p><p>“As I said, this is the Leaky Cauldron,” McGonagall said.</p><p>He slid into the booth opposite her.</p><p>“Ownership has passed along through many hands, but this building has stayed and always will. It’s the only entrance into Diagon Alley in London. It’s stood for longer than I’ve been alive, longer than my grandparents were alive, longer than my grandparents’ great-grandparents,”</p><p>“That’s a long time.” He was still looking around.</p><p>“For when you’re older, this is the best place to get a drink of firewhiskey in Diagon Alley,” She said, smiling.</p><p>A young girl, not much older than Harry, walked from a table where a man was smoking from a long pipe towards them. She was wearing clothes very much like McGonagall’s, though not as nice or put together and in a faded, bluish-grey color.</p><p>“Professor McGonagall,” The girl greeted. “How’re you doing?”</p><p>“I’m doing very well, thank you Miss Nott,” McGonagall said kindly. “Nora, please say hello to a new student of ours,”</p><p>“Muggleborn, huh?” She asked, smiling, though the way she said it set something off wrong in Harry’s stomach.</p><p>“Orphan,” Harry corrected.</p><p>“There’s a lot of that still?” Nott laughed. “I’m Nora Nott. I’ll be a sixth year in September.” She held her hand out.</p><p>He hesitantly reached back, grasping it as he shook it. “Harry,” He said. “Um, Harry Potter,”</p><p>Nott dropped his hand and looked at him in shock. “No way,” She said. “Seriously?”</p><p>“Please, Miss Nott, if you could please not gather too much attention to us,” McGonagall spoke up. “This is Harry’s first time in the magical world in nearly ten years,”</p><p>“It’s true then?” Nott asked. “You were raised by muggles?”</p><p>Harry nodded.</p><p>“Merlin,” She said. “I’m surprised. My father always said he thought you were being raised in another country. It must’ve been terrible, growing up around muggles,”</p><p>Harry shrugged because he didn’t know how else to respond. It did suck growing up with the Dursley’s and being passed around like a rotting potato didn’t feel very good either.</p><p>“Dear, could you bring me a cup of the day’s tea? And for Harry, a glass of fairy milk,” McGonagall interrupted.</p><p>Nott dragged her attention, seemingly painfully, away from Harry to the professor. “I’ll be right back,” She said.</p><p>When she walked away, she kept glancing over her shoulder back at them.</p><p>“Fairy milk?” Harry asked. “Is it from actual fairies?”</p><p>“Oh, no! That would be inhumane,” McGonagall said. “It’s referring to the inventor of it, Gerald Fairy. But, if you are wondering, fairies do exist,”</p><p>“What other things exist?” Harry leaned in slightly closer, elbows rested upon the table.</p><p>“Harry, sit up straight.” She shifted slightly, seemingly disapproving despite the smallest twitch of her mouth up into a smile. “Many, if not all, of the mythical creatures muggles tell stories about are real. Though, not always like they describe,”</p><p>“Do vampires exist? Werewolves? Giants?” Harry fired off, though he did listen and leaned back enough to drag his elbows off of the table.</p><p>“They all do,” She said. “Werewolves and vampires are usually witches and wizards who were bitten. Werewolves come to be when bitten by a transformed werewolf on a night of the full moon, while vampires are created when a human is fed the blood of a vampire after being bitten,”</p><p>“And giants?” He pushed.</p><p>“Giants are just giants,” She answered. “A bit rare nowadays, thanks to muggles, but there are pockets of their communities left. Many half-giants exist as well, as they’ve often had children with witches and wizards. You’ll learn about these beings at Hogwarts, in Care of Magical Creatures of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Care of Magical Creatures is an elective, though if you have an interest, I’m sure the groundskeeper would love to tell you all he knows,”</p><p>Nott returned to the table, then. She sat down a small, silver tea tray as well as a tall mug filled nearly to the brim with sparkly, frothy milk.</p><p>“Anything else today?” She tried not to too obviously stare at Harry, though to him she was failing.</p><p>“Two plates of today’s breakfast special, please,” McGonagall ordered. “I’ll wait to pay, please. I’m sure we’ll be getting refills on our drinks,”</p><p>“Of course, ma’am.” Nott smiled. She glanced at Harry, before she asked, “What House do you think you’ll be in, Harry?”</p><p>“Uh,” Harry blinked. “I don’t know,”</p><p>“Well, I’m in Ravenclaw.” She leaned in close. “Personally, Ravenclaw and Slytherin are the best Houses,”</p><p>“As the Head of Gryffindor, I’ll say each House has its merits.” McGonagall began to drop spoonful after spoonful of sugar into her tea.</p><p>Nott’s laugh was muffled by her hand. “Of course, Professor McGonagall,” She said. “I’ll go put your order in,”</p><p>As she left, Harry asked, “What are Houses?”</p><p>“Hogwarts separates its students into four Houses; Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.” McGonagall poured milk into her cup, before grabbing the tea spoon provided to stir. “Every House has a Head, a professor like me, then Prefects which are older students chosen to help the younger students. There are also the Head Boy and Head Girl, who help supervise prefects,”</p><p>“What makes the Houses different, then?” Harry grabbed onto the mug of fairy milk and dragged it over the table towards himself.</p><p>“Every House had a founder when the school was first built, so every House has its own signature. You’ll learn more when you go,” She said. “It’s tradition for us not to tell you too much, Harry, so I can’t say much more. But, every House has had its good wizards and its bad, its great and its terrible,”</p><p>“What House were my parents in?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Gryffindor,” She said.</p><p>Harry took a sip from the mug and blinked in shock. It was creamier than normal milk and very sweet. He liked it. He took a much longer gulp and smacked his lips.</p><p>“It’s good,” He told her.</p><p>“It was a favorite of mine when I was your age,” She said. “A clever way of making young folk like yourself drink all the milk you should. Sadly, there isn’t any at Hogwarts. The recipe is trademarked and can only be purchased from a few places,”</p><p>Harry just drank more from the mug, until it was half empty.</p><p>“Our first stop after we’re done eating will be Gringotts.” She said after she took a drink from her still steaming cup of tea. “We might be there for a while, though. I have a key for your vault, but I believe it would be best for you to learn your account and sort things out on your own,”</p><p>“Do you really think I’ll have that much?” He asked.</p><p>“You will,” She reassured.</p><p>“How do you know?” Harry thought about the wallet and wondered if he should have just refused it after all.</p><p>“Your grandfather owned a very prosperous business. He sold it in his old age, though he remained as a businessman for the rest of his life. Your father was an only child and surely inherited it all. Naturally, you are the heir to it as well. And, I believe your grandmother was heir to an old family. I’m sure you’ll have at least a small fortune to your name,”</p><p>As they waited for their food, McGonagall answered more of Harry’s questions which led to her eventually pulling out her coin pouch and explaining to him wizarding currency. Galleons, sickles, and knuts; Seventeen sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. She explained about goblins, then, the beings who, in ancient times, utilized their skill with the earth’s minerals to create a separate economy for witches and wizards.</p><p>She also told him about the stores in Diagon Alley and some places they might have to visit, even if there wasn’t anything he needed to buy from them for school. For instance, Sugarplum’s Sweets Shop. She promised him wizarding world candy had much more fun packed in them than muggle candy.</p><p>When Nott came back, she carried with her two large plates piled up with food. Fried tomatoes, bacon, poached eggs, sausages, a bowl of mixed fruit, and toast were all neatly packed onto the plate. She also gave Harry a new mug of fairy milk.</p><p>The food was amazing. Better than he’d ever in his entire life, though that wasn’t very hard to beat. The Dursley’s certainly never fed him very much food and the home basically gave him slop. Everything else, his time with all the families he was passed around, wasn’t very memorable.</p><p>He ate quickly, eating the toast last as he finished off both mugs of fairy milk.</p><p>Nott came back once more. McGonagall paid her with heavy gold coins and a couple of silver coins – a galleon and some sickles.</p><p>Before the teenage witch left, she told Harry, “Hope to see you on the train. My brother’s coming in this year. If you find me, I’ll be happy to introduce you,”</p><p>McGonagall got out of the booth and Harry followed her every move, all the way towards the back wall. Only, as they walked by the bar counter, the bartender leaned over the counter and asked, “Are you really Harry Potter?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Harry said, almost hesitant to admit it. He wasn’t very hesitant at all though, and that was a mistake he quickly learned.</p><p>“By Merlin!” The bartender peered at him, while the pub went completely silent now and didn’t even bother to try to hide their stares. “What an honor! Harry Potter!” He hurried from behind the counter and rushed toward Harry, taking his hand and squeezing tightly while he roughly shook it.</p><p>“Nice to meet you,” Harry awkwardly said.</p><p>“He said it’s nice to meet me!” The bartender laughed.</p><p>After that moment, people suddenly rushed forward. Then, Harry was shaking the hands of everyone present within the Leaky Cauldron. He stood there, overcome, but unable to refuse because he couldn’t say a word while they surrounded him like a pack of hungry wolves.</p><p>“Name’s Doris Crockford! I can’t believe I’m meeting you!” Said one.</p><p>“So proud! Oh, Mr. Potter! I’m just so proud!” Said another.</p><p>“Always wanted to shake your hand, by Merlin! Harry Potter touched my hand!” Said a man who shrieked with laughter and waved his hand around.</p><p>“Name’s Diggle, Dedalus Diggle!” A man bowed in front of him before rushing forward and eagerly took his hand, shaking it rough before stepping back and bowing again.</p><p>Finally, McGonagall stepped him and saved him.</p><p>“Alright now, stop making a fool of yourselves,” She scolded. “Mr. Potter has to do his school shopping,”</p><p>“His school shopping!” Doris Crockford shouted. “Here, Mr. Potter,” She shoved a jingling back of coins into his hand.</p><p>Before Harry could refuse, so did many others in the pub. They gave him galleons and sacks. One wizard looked tempted to give him his wand, but instead gave him a necklace with a fat jade stone.</p><p>“I- I can’t accept all this!” Harry tried to say.</p><p>“Please, Mr. Potter, take it,” The wizard who gave him the necklace said. “We all owe you. Please, take everything!”</p><p>McGonagall rescued him again, putting her hand on his shoulder and drawing him back behind her. “We’ll be off now,” She said.</p><p>Harry shouted out, “Thank you! All of you!” Because he had no idea what else to even do, with the armful of things he now apparently owned.</p><p>Now in front of McGonagall, he felt her robes brush against him as she pulled her wand out and tapped a brick on the wall.</p><p>The brick wriggled then, suddenly, a hole began to grow in the middle. The hole grew larger and larger until there was a large archway in the brick wall showing a crowded, cobblestone street lined with buildings that went off in either side in twists and turns.</p><p>“Welcome to Diagon Alley,” McGonagall said gently above him. She pushed him forward.</p><p>When Harry looked back as the gateway closed, the people in the Leaky Cauldron were still all standing and staring at him with wide eyes. He saw Nora Nott last, smiling at him and waving goodbye.</p><p>“What should I do with these things?” Harry asked McGonagall, looking down at the armful of objects he’d suddenly acquired.</p><p>“I apologize.” She sighed softly. “I tried to make our visit a little more discreet. People can get a bit out of hand when you’re involved, even when you aren’t present. Just hold onto everything. You can deposit those things into your vault at Gringotts,”</p><p>McGonagall led Harry through Diagon Alley. He made sure to stay close behind her. He knew that she was his guide and he wasn’t willing enough right now to try to let himself adventure. For another day, when he knew more, he’d come through again and explore on his own.</p><p>The shopping district was amazing to Harry.</p><p>There was a stack of cauldrons glinting away in the sun by the nearest shop, with advertisements touting every size and material. Some were collapsible, some were self-stirring, some were just pretty. There was a woman outside of an apothecary complaining about the price of dragon liver as they walked by. Further ahead, an owl shop – Eeylops Owl Emporium – and Harry’s eyes widened for what must be at least the dozenth time so far as he watched an owl stare back at him and make a petulant noise.</p><p>“I would recommend an owl if you weren’t going back to the children’s home,” McGonagall said. “It’s basically the wizarding world’s way of delivering mail,”</p><p>Harry nodded, though he almost wasn’t even paying anymore attention. The shops around were him were very interesting, after all. They seemingly everything. Robes, telescopes and shiny silver instruments, bat spleens and eels’ eyes, books, quills, parchment, globes of the Earth and Moon, and even fruits and vegetables and herbs with some that he didn’t think he had ever seen before.</p><p>Soon, they reached a large, white building that towered over the rest of Diagon Alley. At the front doors, which were shiny and bronze, stood two strange creatures in a red and gold uniform.</p><p>“What are those?” Harry asked. “Demons?”</p><p>“Of course not!” McGonagall huffs. “Those are goblins, Harry,”</p><p>“Oh,” Harry examined them as they got closer before he suddenly felt very rude.</p><p>Goblins were like humans, obviously, just not in appearance. He supposed that they were magical in a different way, but, still. Sentient, normal beings. He didn’t want to be like the people who treated others badly because of the color of their skin or how their voice sounded.</p><p>When the goblins bowed at them, Harry stopped and bowed back. He quickly realized McGonagall wasn’t though and he stood up straight, blushing. He thought he saw them smiling at him as he hurried to catch up with her at the next set of doors, which were silver and inscribed.</p><p>“A warning?” Harry tried to read it in its entirety as the new set of guards opened the doors. He failed.</p><p>“No one has ever robbed this bank,” McGonagall said. “The goblins here pride themselves in their amazing security. Many have tried, but they never leave this building again once they do,”</p><p>“Wicked.” Harry outright gasped when the doors opened and he looked out onto an extraordinary marble hall.</p><p>At least a hundred more goblins sat behind a long counter. They were scribbling in ledgers, weighing coins, examining gems and jewelry, or talking to people standing before them. More goblins yet were coming in and out of the many doors that led off from the hall, leading people back and forth, or walking on their own.</p><p>He hadn’t ever been in a bank like this before.</p><p>Or, well, any bank at all.</p><p>McGonagall and Harry go up to a free goblin. Or, well, a goblin without someone in front of them because the being was quietly scribbling away in a large book when they came up to him.</p><p>“Hello, we’re here to access from a vault and, if possible, meet with the accountant in charge of it,” McGonagall said. “Owner of the vault is Harry Potter,”</p><p>“I’ll need proof of identity,” The goblin said.</p><p>“I have a key.” McGonagall pulled a shiny, silver key from a hidden pocket in her robes and held it out for the goblin to take.</p><p>The goblin shook his head. “Mr. Potter, please come forward,” He said. He closed the book he had been writing hood and knocked on the stone cover, before opening it up to a blank first page.</p><p>Harry slowly sat down the items in his arms on the floor, before he came closer to the goblin. He was silently guided by the goblin to raising his hand above the page. Then, the goblin seemed exhausted by his inability to understand silent commands. He grabbed Harry’s hand and brought it down to the page. As soon as the first contact of his skin hit, he felt a prick and he yanked his hand back.</p><p>A drop of blood remained on the page. It spread, thickening out and darkening into black. It wrote itself across the page, in runic letters that Harry didn’t understand in the slightest, though it made him think of Vikings.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” McGonagall soothed. “The goblins’ way of blood magic isn’t harmful,”</p><p>“Mr. Harry Potter, son of James Potter and Lily Evans Potter.” The goblin nodded. “Unluckily for you, it seems as though there is no accountant currently charged with any of your vaults. The accountant must have died recently and we haven’t assigned a new accountant yet with the duty,”</p><p>“Is that bad?” Harry asked, rubbing his thumb over the palm of his hand where he was pricked. “Can I still access my money?”</p><p>“Yes,” The goblin said. “I’ll send a notice out and expedite the process. For now, I’ll be a temporary accountant. If you’re okay with me doing so, I can list what’s currently in your possession according to our records,”</p><p>Harry nodded. He didn’t know what else to do in response to that.</p><p>The goblin began to read from the book. “Vault 687, otherwise marked as the Potter family vault.” He turned the page. “You also own vault 349, created by Lily Evans in 1971. Then…” He turned another page. “You stand to inherit vault 711, a personal vault, and vault 801, also known as the Black family vault. You can access vault 687 with the key you have currently, but I’ll remind you that when a new accountant is assigned, the locks on your vaults will chance and you will be issued new keys and the old will be obsolete,”</p><p>“Are you sure? He’s to inherit the Black family vault?” McGonagall looked shocked.</p><p>Harry wondered why.</p><p>“Yes. There are also properties here, but you’ll have to wait for your official accountant to know more. They will handle what needs to be handled for the deeds, as that involves work with the Ministry,” The goblin said. “Now, is there anything you wish to do?”</p><p>“I need money from a vault, and, uh, to deposit some stuff,” Harry said.</p><p>“You’ll have to do with vault 687 for now, because that’s the only key you have, correct?” The goblin asked.</p><p>Harry looked to McGonagall, who nodded.</p><p>“Then, you can do your day’s transactions with the assistance of a peer. Please await an owl over the next week from your official accountant. They will give you options for a day and time to discuss the matter of your accounts,” The goblin said simply. “Griphook!”</p><p>Another goblin hobbled forward from where he had just exited out of the side doors on his own.</p><p>“Take Mr. Potter and his acquaintance here to his vault.” The goblin handed Griphook the shiny key.</p><p>Once Harry picked up his things off of the floor, he followed Griphook with McGonagall to one of the doors leading off from the hall.</p><p>Griphook led to a door – not the one he came from – and opened it for them. Harry expected more marble and extravagance but was greeted inside with a narrow stone passageway weakly lit by torches. The goblin went in right after them and closed the door, before whistling.</p><p>A small cart came hurtling up a railroad track on the floor, stopping suddenly right beside them.</p><p>Harry struggled to get himself inside, but McGonagall helped him.</p><p>Griphook didn’t talk at all, even when the cart lurched forward. Harry didn’t know how the cart was going to lead them to where they needed to go, because Griphook didn’t seem to be steering the cart. Still, the cart picked up more speed and began to take sharp turns.</p><p>The air burned Harry’s eyes and he had to blink out tears. Then, suddenly, there was a sharp plunge downward.</p><p>Harry almost yelled out in panic, hands moving to grasp the sides of the carts desperately. He didn’t feel like he was going to fall out, he felt firmly stationed down, but still, he felt like he was going to let go or lose his standing and just go flying. It was disconcerting, at best, and when the cart finally slowed to a stop, he felt very relieved.</p><p>Harry followed Griphook out of the cart, once again with some help from McGonagall.</p><p>Griphook walked up to a small door against the stone wall. He pushed the key into the lock and twisted it. A large thud sounded, then the door began to crack open. Griphook took the door in his hand and pulled it completely open.</p><p>Harry walked forward, arms full, and gasped as he entered the vault and looked around.</p><p>Mountains of gold, silver, and bronze. It was amazing. He thought about what McGonagall had told him about wizarding money, thought about the cost of their food at the Leaky Cauldron, and continued to stare at the mountains of money in shock.</p><p>Harry had no idea that he had so much money belonging to him. He was definitely returning the wallet he was given. He wasn’t going to need it. He dropped the items in his arms and walked through the vault, amazed at everything around him.</p><p>“Harry,” McGonagall called.</p><p>Right. “Sorry!” Harry shouted, moving back towards the pile of items. He bent down and moved through everything until he found the small pouch from earlier. Before he stood up straight, he took the necklace and threw it over his head.</p><p>He rubbed his finger over the cold stone. It was a nice necklace. It would be rude not to wear it.</p><p>Harry went over to the gold pile and shoveled in coins. The purse didn’t seem to get any heavier, though it did expand in size. He stopped after a few handfuls and went to the other piles, throwing in sickles and knuts as well.</p><p>When he was done, he walked out of the vault. “The purse didn’t get any heavier,” He said. It didn’t get very much bigger in size, either.</p><p>“It’s a common, charmed bag,” McGonagall said. “Don’t put anything important inside, you might lose it for a long time,”</p><p>Harry nodded and followed her and Griphook back into the cart.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>British curse words are weird. If any curse words are used and the British don't use them? Oops. The only actual one I know for sure is 'cunt' and that they throw it around w/o caring. Anyways, this chapter was originally supposed to be...way longer. But I decided to slice it into half because it was getting ridiculous in length, which I discovered while *gasp* editing. So, yeah. Sorry, lmfao. The rest of Harry's Diagon Alle trip is going to be put up on a separate chapter. I divided in a way that most made sense, honest! So, I hope you enjoyed the earlier-than-really-thought-would-be-managed-by-me update!</p><p>Also! The next couple updates might take longer than usual so far. I have to drive up to my college town and help my team fundraise like twice over the next week, then it's Fourth of July, *then* I have the regular practice-work I need to do, and my family's making me go to a zoo in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, so. Yeah. Enjoy this piece, I guess?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Diagon Alley</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>unbetaed</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry and Professor McGonagall left Gringotts. They exited from the front doors back out onto Diagon Alley. As they walked, Harry quickly realized that the witch was allowing him to lead the way. It immediately made him slow down and try to fall back, but she just smiled at him.</p><p>“It’s your gold,” She said kindly. “You know what’s on your list. I’ll help where I believe is necessary and make some suggestions, but this is all your responsibility. And, too, an opportunity to spoil yourself for the first time. Have fun, Harry,”</p><p>“All my gold.” Harry felt the pouch full of coins and realized that she was right. It was still a very bizarre feeling, though.</p><p>He pulled his backpack around – he forgot he even had it! He realized, suddenly, he should’ve packed all of those items he carried around inside of it. He must have looked like a moron walking into Gringotts like that.</p><p>After he found his letter, he separated the parchment listing his supplies.</p><p>“Clothes, first?” Harry suggested.</p><p>McGonagall just nodded. “I know the perfect place,” She said.</p><p>The perfect place was Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. According to the witch, it was the most popular place to get the Hogwarts uniform, but they also were a perfect place for any one person coming out of the muggle world to get their first wardrobe of clothes best fit for the magical world.</p><p>Harry walked in and a worker immediately greeted him.</p><p>“Hogwarts uniform, sir?” She asked.</p><p>“Yeah, and,” He paused and glanced at McGonagall. He didn’t know what to ask, exactly, about getting new clothes. He didn’t even know if he wanted new clothes. He liked his jeans and t-shirts.</p><p>“He’ll need a basic wardrobe,” McGonagall said.</p><p>“Of course.” She smiled. “Just follow me. We’ll be going to a more private room, so we can fit you to everything properly,”</p><p>Everything turned out to be robes, socks, shoes, cloaks, and undergarments. He was stood up on a stool and prodded with needles for at least an hour. He let McGonagall choose what the fabric should be for everything because, outside of the Hogwarts uniform, it was entirely up to him to choose. He didn’t know half of the things that the worker listed off, but the professor seemed to know them all.</p><p>His Hogwarts robes, standard black robes, were made from cotton. As were the rest of his robes, except for two. One was a set of dress robes which McGonagall personally recommended to have silk lining, so he agreed. The other was neatly embroidered, like the robes McGonagall was wearing, only it was black fabric with silver thread. It was also apparently made from a magically-bred version of cotton, which allowed it to grow with him for at least a couple of years. Something McGonagall also recommended.</p><p>He chose his shoes himself, though. He was shown different designs and they all looked like fancy dress shoes, except for the boots. So, he got a pair of dragonhide boots that looked a lot like the combat boots he always wanted but wasn’t ever able to afford. Well, until now, he realized.</p><p>Everything was packaged neatly and magically put into only two bags. McGonagall told him as they left, “We’ll get a good trunk. I have a love for the rotating trunk, myself, but I’m sure you’ll be able to fix everything into a large trunk,”</p><p>Right next door, though, wasn’t a trunk seller. It was a book shop. Inside, Harry found all of the books on his list easily. McGonagall, though, eagerly piled up extra books and told him the worth of every one in regards to his understanding of the wizarding world.</p><p>“You’ll appreciate the reading,” She said. “I’m sure you’ll get anxious over the rest of the summer, yes? I promise this will help alleviate all your boredom and answer questions you don’t know to ask yet,”</p><p>She looked very happy about the books she had chosen, but Harry bought them.</p><p>They moved from store to store. For the most part, Harry stayed obedient to what was needed on his list. Until he stopped in front of <em>Anne’s Music Shoppe</em>.</p><p>“You have a muggle thing to play music, don’t you?” McGonagall said.</p><p>Harry nodded.</p><p>“Muggle technology like that has a habit of acting up around a lot of magic,” She said. “I’m sure they’ll sell things here that might help you continue being able to listen to music safely at school,”</p><p>Harry smiled and went inside, eager. He hadn’t ever been able to freely spend as much money as he wanted on anything, even music. He told McGonagall so, excited, as he went inside.</p><p>“Never have really been able to get whatever I wanted, not since…” Harry trailed off. “Ever, really,”</p><p>There were instruments on the walls, as well as aisles of jewelry boxes and strange-looking, shiny devices. As Harry wandered down an aisle, a worker suddenly appeared in front of him.</p><p>“Looking for anything in particular?” He asked.</p><p>“A music player,” Harry said.</p><p>The worker smiled. “Follow me, young man!” He led Harry to the other side of the store, to the jewelry boxes and boxes that looked like record players until they were opened.</p><p>“I’d like to be able to listen to muggle music still,” Harry said.</p><p>“No worries,” The worker said. He picked up a small box. The lid was covered in translucent blue glass, beneath which was a slowly swaying picture of a woman blowing a horn while standing on a rock surrounded by water. “This here can record whatever you want and play it back. You’ll just have to use the buttons here,” He lifted the lid and pointed to each of the buttons. “It can remember as many songs as you want. A preference for folks like you, though it’s not as handy for skipping or finding the right song like some other pieces we have, but it’s the only kind we’ve got that can record songs to replay later,”</p><p>“I’ll take it,” Harry decided suddenly.</p><p>He followed the worker to the counter and paid. As he waited for it to be wrapped up, he glanced at the instruments on display. Harps, violins, flutes, strange-looking guitars, drums, but nothing that really resembled something like an electric guitar. He guessed it didn’t matter. He had other things to learn and master, learning to play the guitar was probably just dumb.</p><p>When they exited the music stare, Harry realized the sky was beginning to darken. He had no idea that they had been shopping for so long, but then looked at the handfuls of bags. They even had a trunk, temporarily shrunk, stuffed into a bag. He was preoccupied all day, mind caught up on a large supply of gold and all the wonderous, new things he could get without fearing someone to start shouting at him.</p><p>“We have one more thing,” McGonagall said.</p><p>Harry frowned. “What am I missing?” He asked, pulling up his list. He knew he couldn’t get a familiar, not at the home.</p><p>“A wand,” McGonagall said just as Harry’s eyes caught on the word on his list.</p><p>“Where do I go to get a wand?” Harry looked up and stared around Diagon Alley, which wasn’t slowing down at all with night approaching.</p><p>“There’s only one place in Britain you should go to get your wand,” She said. “Come with me,”</p><hr/><p>Minerva took Harry to Ollivanders Wand Shop. It was a narrow, shabby building with peeling gold letters over a short door. It was a building that hadn’t changed for as long as she had known it. Past the dirty display window, on a faded purple pillow, sat a lone wand which she didn’t think had ever been changed for another. If she didn’t know any better, she would think it wasn’t ever touched. But no Ollivander would ever allow a wand to go neglected like that.</p><p>She left Harry at the door. “I have one thing I must do on my own. I’ll be back before you’re done,”</p><p>Harry hesitated but nodded. She left him with the bags, which she could see him place down on a chair when directed by Ollivander before the door even shut.</p><p>Her mother once told her getting your first wand should be an experience between the soon-to-be owner and the seller. Minerva had stood in the shop on her own while her mother stood outside. It wasn’t a common tradition in the wizarding world. Looking back, she was sure it was just her mother trying to help her understand that there were moments where she didn’t know what to expect and no one to look to for comfort.</p><p>It was something, she thought, Harry might appreciate later.</p><p>Besides, Minerva did have something she wanted to do.</p><p>She wanted to get Harry a birthday gift. It was still a couple weeks away, but she doubted she would be able to see the boy again so soon. Their next time together would, certainly, be when Harry needed a guide back to Diagon Alley when it was time to meet his accountant at Gringotts.</p><p>Minerva would rather get the boy an owl. However, she knew that wasn’t the best choice. How could he manage to hide an entire bird at the children’s home? She would have to go with something smaller, or at least something that started out small.</p><p>An owl would be obvious. A rat or a toad didn’t seem as worth hiding, even if both would be very easy to. A kitten, however, Minerva was sure would be easy to hide and would grow into a perfect familiar.</p><p>She walked past Eeylops Owl Emporium and she kept walking until she was finally at the Magical Menagerie.</p><p>When she was a girl, this was the same store she went to obtain her first familiar. It had been a barn owl, purchased for her by her uncle. The one who would one day mysteriously vanish, then reappear after a year as a corpse.</p><p>Her first time in the store had been a fun one. Her eleven-year-old self was entertained by the animals. At the time, they had a much larger variety. There were no rules yet at Hogwarts over what familiars you could bring, so the store had the opportunity to sell not just the most common.</p><p>There were the kneazles and cats, the toads and rats, but there were also dogs, tropical birds, snakes, and three-headed beasts. She remembered, clearly, an ostrich egg perched onto a pillow and a boy just a few years older than her staring at it.</p><p>The boy was handsome. He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes. He looked like what she imagined when her mother told her old myths of demigods and monsters. Despite his old robes clearly repaired through magical means, the aura around the boy drew her in.</p><p>She would know the boy later as Tom Riddle. At Hogwarts, he was a Slytherin. Later on, he was a Prefect then Head Boy. And later past that, a monster.</p><p>Minerva thought about the look in Tom Riddle’s eyes when she had asked him if he was going to buy the ostrich egg. He had said no, kindly, but his eyes spoke a much different story. They rolled with emotion that caught her, like a fish on a hook. As the memory floated through her head, she realized his eyes reminded her of the look in Harry’s when she first met him.</p><p>She dismissed the memories, quickly enough.</p><p>Inside the shop, Minerva examined the animals. She walked past the cages of rats, past the toads, past the fish, past the birds, until near the back where the cats relaxed.</p><p>A small pen sat up over a circular table, caging in a grey kneazle with kittens walking around her. Hanging off of the table was a sign that read; <em>HALF-KNEAZLE KITTENS! ASK FOR PRICE!</em></p><p>“Excuse me,” Minerva called a worker, who was feeding a bright yellow bird, over.</p><p>“Yes?” The worker asked. Vaguely familiar, surely a student at one point, the worker was cautiously eyeing her.</p><p>“How much are one of these kittens?” She asked.</p><p>“Fifty galleons,” The worker said.</p><p>“That’s an awful lot,” Minerva glanced towards the kittens again.</p><p>A white kitten with black spots sat in the corner, tail flicking through the air.</p><p>“Price can’t be changed, ma’am.” The worker leaned into the cage and picked up an all-black kitten. “These are some beauties, though. Already pretty smart, too. Mom’s been working hard to keep them in the cage,”</p><p>“I’ll take the white one,” She decided. “With feed, please,”</p><p>Minerva left the shop with the kitten inside of a small cage and a bag containing treats and food for the thing. She didn’t know its gender, but she figured that didn’t matter. Cats were fine, elegant, intelligent creatures that made the best familiars even though, maybe, not as practical as an owl.</p><p>Outside of Ollivanders Wand Shop, she paused. She didn’t want to barge into anything, but when she peeked into the window she saw Harry holding a wand close to his chest and Ollivander talking. She guessed the selection was over and walked inside.</p><p>The bell rang and it didn’t cover Ollivander’s hushed tone as he talked to Harry.</p><p>“—Just one other. It’s very curious indeed, that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar,”</p><p>Minerva’s eyes widened. Surely, the wandmaker didn’t mean that, did he? Only, there wasn’t any way to confuse what she overheard.</p><p>“Thirteen and a half inches, yew. Curious how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember this Mr. Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible, but great.” Ollivander stepped back and said, almost suddenly, that it was seven galleons for the wand.</p><p>Just then, the kitten meowed.</p><p>Harry jumped. His head whipped around and stared at her. He hadn’t realized she came into the store.</p><p>She was regretting the decision. This was going to be something Harry might not want many people to know.</p><p>“I have a gift for you,” Minerva said kindly, hoping to distract him.</p><p>After Harry was given his wand and they gathered up the bags of things he had bought, they exited the wand shop. Minerva was also carrying an empty cage because Harry had taken the kitten out. It immediately sat on Harry’s shoulder and curled up against his neck, calm, and content.</p><p>“You’re going to have to hide them,” She said. “But, they’ll be small for a little while. By the time they are fully grown, you won’t be needing to go back to that home,”</p><p>“How soon do you think?” Harry asked. “I mean, how soon do you think I’ll know where I get to go?”</p><p>“I believe that’s up to you,” She said. “Once you’re at Hogwarts, I’ll help you write to the Ministry about obtaining permission to leave the home, but then, it’ll be up to you where to go, or what to do. For now, what do you think you’ll name your familiar?”</p><p>Harry grinned. “If it’s a boy, Ozzy,” He said. “I dunno about if it’s a girl. I don’t know any girl names that sound as good as that. Maybe Vince, too,”</p><p>“Interesting names,” She commented.</p><p>“They’re muggle singers,” He explained. “Do you know any?”</p><p>“I do not.” She gently shook her head. “Let’s go have dinner, Harry,”</p><p>Minerva took Harry back to the Leaky Cauldron. She spent the meal advising him to read his books and explained to him that he couldn’t practice any magic with his wand. Once on the train to Hogwarts, it would be safe, but no sooner than.</p><p>“Underage witches and wizards have their magic regulated under the International Statute of Secrecy,” She said. “You’ll learn more about that as you read,”</p><p>Harry ate slowly, but gladly drank two full mugs of fairy milk and was on his third before his plate was cleared.</p><p>She thought, maybe, she would have to purchase him a pint and send it to him to drink. She would have to keep contact up, just to make sure he had an easy way back to Diagon Alley when he had to meet about accounts at Gringotts.</p><p>“If I have to come back here, will you take me?” Harry asked, staring down the last bits of his food. Poking at it with his fork.</p><p>“I will,” She said.</p><p>Minerva felt almost sad when she Apparated back to Hermes’ Home for Children. She helped Harry get all of his things back to his room and hid the kitten in the sleeve of her robes when Madam Charlotte had eyed them carrying up bags and bags of new things.</p><p>As she left, she saw Harry pull a muggle wallet thick with muggle money out of his pocket and set it on his pillow.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This came out waay shorter than I thought it was going to be. I wish I just kept it attached to the previous chapter, oops. Oh, well, I guess? It's a good treat for you while I try to power through the next chapter between all the ~fun stuff~ happening this week.</p><p>To everyone who mostly doesn't care, my team's raised almost two thousand dollars so far and we still have seven days left in the summer for fundraising including Fourth of July. I'm completely ignoring some of my practice time for this story, so don't tell anyone lmfao</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Time Passing By, slowly</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A close inspection revealed Harry’s kitten was a girl. If he hadn’t already spent a night with her purring on his chest, he might have been at least a little upset about not getting a boy kitten to give a really cool name to. Girl names just didn’t sound as cool to him, he thought, but he guessed he would figure one out eventually.</p><p>The morning after his visit to Diagon Alley, Harry sat in his bed and flipped through his books. He was sure he’d find a name in one of them that would click just right. As he skimmed through the pages, his kitten laid curled up over his thigh. She was tiny enough to fit fine. She slept peacefully, oblivious to the music pounding of Harry’s headphones as he went book to book from the pile he’d brought with him to bed.</p><p>He got a little lost and forgot he was trying to find inspiration for a name. It wasn’t his fault, truly. McGonagall had piled him up with a lot of really strange, interesting books.</p><p>There was <em>101 Ways to Magically Mend, Knit, or Sew </em>which listed off a lot of spells for enchanting needles and fabric, but what he was also pretty sure would be fun to use in a duel. He also went through <em>Dueling: Proper Etiquette and Jargon</em>, which detailed formal battles between wizards. It was interesting, but so was <em>Quidditch Through the Ages</em> and neither provided a name that felt right for his kitten.</p><p>Eventually, he opened up <em>A History of Magic</em>. It was there he found his kitten’s name.</p><p>Shortly after the wizarding world enacted of the Statute of Secrecy, a witch named Hedwig invented Portkeys which made traveling easier for the witch or wizard. Best suitable for long distances or discreet magical travel at night without needing Apparation or specially charmed fireplaces for the Floo system, it was revolutionary for the time. It was enough important that it filled up an entire page in his book.</p><p>Hedwig also just sounded right to him. It sounded as good as Ozzy did, only he didn’t know if his kitten would appreciate being named after a muggle man.</p><p>As lunch neared, Harry filled up two small dishes with food and water for his kitten to bother wish if she wanted to.</p><p>“Hedwig,” He cooed. He scratched the top of her head and she sleepily stared back at him. “I’ll be back, okay? I skipped breakfast, so I can’t skip lunch. If someone comes in, you have to hide or they’ll take you away,”</p><p>She looked like she understood him.</p><p>When Harry left his room, he brought with him the wallet.</p><p>Low Rider and Crock had been nice to give it to him, but he didn’t need it and it felt wrong to hold onto it, now, knowing how much money he actually had.</p><p>Lunch was served at the ground floor in the dining hall. He sat down at his normal spot, in the corner, and waited until the line shrank down before he finally stood up to go get his food. He learned long ago that there wasn’t any point joining the fight for food. It all wasn’t very good anyways. If the Dursley’s had taught him anything, it was to wait his turn. At least he was still given what the state decided was a proper meal.</p><p>He got a tray of food and quietly took a carton of milk, before he retreated back to his spot in the corner.</p><p>Just as he was sitting down, Harry saw Crock and Low Rider. Both of them were almost across the room, talking to each other while surrounding by their increasing number of lackeys.</p><p>First, he ate.</p><p>It wasn’t anything like the amazing good food he ate at the Leaky Cauldron. The meat was tough and bland, the mashed potatoes were lumpy and somehow without any flavor at all, no matter how much salt he tried to add. He still ate it, though, because food was food and he was hungry.</p><p>Harry thought about the Dursley’s and all the homes he’d spent time in. This food, as terrible as it was, seemed better yet. It was more than the Dursley ever gave him. And while it tasted worse than most of the food he was given no matter what home, it came without that feeling of attachment and no one lording his next meal over it. He would be given a meal no matter what, because the state said so and the organization that ran this place said so. Not even Madam Charlotte would hold food back from him.</p><p>When he was done, he cleared off his tray and set it into the slowly growing pile of dirty dishes. He dropped his fork into the can with all the others and tossed the empty milk carton into the trash bin.</p><p>Then, he went out to do what he wanted to do in the first place.</p><p>“Harry!” Low Rider yelled out in greeting as Harry got close.</p><p>“Um.” Harry glanced at the other people sitting at the table. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out the wallet, but before he could hand it back Low Rider was standing up and herding Harry away from the table.</p><p>Crock followed.</p><p>Just outside of the dining hall, Low Rider said, “Hey now, don’t be flaunting that wallet around, okay? Not around everyone. People talk and there’s a couple people here who won’t hesitate to try to break into your room for something like that,”</p><p>“Let them break into your room, then, because I don’t need it,” Harry said and shoved the wallet into Low Rider’s hand.</p><p>“Woah, why?” Crock asked. “Harry, you don’t owe anything back for it. Keep it,”</p><p>“I don’t need it,” Harry said. “My parents left me money for everything. I- I don’t want to take it. You guys need it more than I do,</p><p>“Strange fucker.” Low Rider laughed. “Okay, fine. You know most people would’ve kept it anyways,”</p><p>Harry faltered, just slightly, before he said, “I don’t care. I don’t need it, so I don’t want it,”</p><p>Crock teased Harry, pulling at a strange of his hair was that sticking out particularly stubborn.</p><p>“I’ll keep it then,” Low Rider said. “But if you need someone, don’t be scared to ask, alright? You might be the only kid here going places now. We gotta watch each other’s backs,”</p><p>That night; Harry sat down in his bed, surrounded by books once again. He had to force himself to eat dinner, though he saved a chunk of what they called chopped steak that was really just hamburger meat in a napkin to bring back to Hedwig. He fed it to her before going to read, just like McGonagall had told him to do.</p><p>He read through <em>The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1</em> and quietly flipped through the pages, trying to absorb as much as he could about the spells. He would want to try them as soon as he could, he thought, which would have to be on the train to Hogwarts.</p><p>Hedwig eventually came up and perched herself on his shoulder. She curled up against his neck and began to purr.</p><p>When he knew it was nearing midnight and the only source of light was coming from Harry’s candles seemed to be worth less and less, he decided it was time to stop. His eyes were beginning to hurt as he read through the spell book, anyways.</p><p>Harry marked the page he was on and set it off to the side.</p><p>Just as he was standing up to change into something more comfortable to sleep in, he heard a rapping against the window.</p><p>He almost ignored it, but the noise continued. Finally, then, he went to see the cause.</p><p>His window, covered up, had to be lifted in order for him to see what was happening. Immediately, an owl flew in and landed on his desk chair.</p><p>The owl dropped a package to the ground and stayed put. Harry remembered that owls did the post for the wizarding world. Weird.</p><p>He kept the window open and went to pick up the package. As he held it, the owl made a noise and he reached out to gently pet it. The owl didn’t seem to mind the touch, in fact it seemed happy to have it.</p><p>Harry opened up the package – discovering a pink of fairy milk, a book, and a letter. He set the milk down on the desk before he examined the book. It was a story book, called <em>The Tales of Beedle the Bard</em>. He flipped through briefly before placing it beside the glass bottle. Then, he ripped open the letter.</p><p>
  <em>Harry,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I was in Diagon Alley today and saw they had a sale for fairy milk at a stall. I thought I’d send you some since you liked it so much at the Leaky Cauldron. Hopefully, you enjoy it. And, yes, cats probably shouldn’t always drink milk, but half-kneazles lack the lactose intolerance that most cats have. Feel free to spoil your kitten with some.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Have you been contacted by Gringotts yet? I’ll be trying to write as frequently as possible so I can make sure you’re there for whatever appointment. Times like these, it would be easier if you had your own owl, but for now, this will have to do. </em>
</p><p><em>How are you doing? Have you been reading at all? If so, what books have you been delving into to? Out of the first year books, I believe you should pay particular attention to </em>Magical Droughts and Potions<em> because our Potions professor is a very demanding sort. He’ll know you as the Boy-Who-Lived and might want to pick on you some with some hard questions, but all the answers will be in that book. Of course, don’t neglect any of your other studies, either.</em></p><p>
  <em>I’m including along with the milk a copy of a childhood favorite of mine. These are the tales and stories that young witches and wizards grew up with. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did when I was your age. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It’s getting late as I write this, so I wish you goodnight. My owl, May, will wait for your response before leaving. She doesn’t mind waiting or pets, so don’t feel rushed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Signed,<br/>Minerva McGonagall</em>
</p><p>He set the parchment down and ruffled through his things until he found a pencil and a piece of paper to write back.</p><p>Harry thanked her for the milk, then told her he hadn’t heard anything yet from Gringotts. He also told her he’s been reading through all of the books, even the extra ones that she had picked out for him, though he hadn’t yet finished anything. All the books were interesting, because it was all stuff that was very new to him. He also thanked her for the new book.</p><p>He let May the owl take the folded up paper and watched as she hopped off the chair to fly right back out his window.</p><p>The next morning, Harry helped himself to the fairy milk and shared some with Hedwig. He read out loud to her from the book McGonagall had sent him. She seemed to listen to him and even fell asleep after finishing her share of the milk, though stirred whenever Harry went to stop talking. So, he just read through the entire book until it was nearly lunchtime.</p><p>Harry hadn’t ever been able to make friends. At the Dursley’s, his cousin always chased off anyone with a kind intent. He supposed, at most, he had Ms. Sweet. After leaving Privet Drive and being sent home from home, kids increasingly just kept away from him after the first place he’d been in. He had, now, Crock and Low Rider and some of the older kids, but they weren’t friends. They just were the few that didn’t treat Harry absolutely terribly and instead pitied him for ending up at the home when so young, without any family at all.</p><p>He was wanted in the wizarding world. He would, maybe, be able to make actual friends there. At least, he had Hedwig.</p><p>The non-magical world, the muggle world, wasn’t a very nice one to be in. Harry couldn’t wait until he finally found his way out. Hogwarts was first, it seemed. But after that, he’d do whatever he had to do with the wizarding government and use however much gold he’d need to, to buy a home. He didn’t care if he had to live alone, as long as he was far way from this place.</p><p>As Harry sat there and finished off the fairy milk, he thought about the places he had been sent to right after the Dursley’s.</p><p>The family that kicked him out because they finally were able to have a child of their own, despite treating him so nicely during their time together until, suddenly, he had no worth. That still hurt to think about. It made his stomach and chest clench up and feel uneasy, in a way he almost couldn’t describe other than bad.</p><p>Then, the single women who wanted children and the couple with wives who turned their head away whenever their husbands wanted to do something.</p><p>He thought about Oliver and Jody Wilson. The home that made everything worse.</p><p>He wouldn’t ever forget crying underneath the bed, while Mr. Wilson stood there and tried to tried to talk him out from underneath. He wouldn’t ever forget the feeling of that man’s hands on him, because no matter what everything always felt wrong with him. Even hugs. He wouldn’t ever forget the man’s screaming when he caught on fire when he tried to drag Harry out from underneath the bed.</p><p>Harry thought about his magic. How, one day, he would be able to freely use it. He hoped he never forgot the Wilson’s. He hoped he could find them again, one day, and finish what he’d started.</p><p>His fists clenched tight – he realized, then, he was crying.</p><p>Hedwig was awake, then, meowing at him and climbing up to start dragging her sandpaper-rough tongue against his cheek.</p><p>“I’m fine,” He told her. “I’m sorry, Hedwig. I’m thinking about bad stuff. I should stop that, right?”</p><p>She meowed again.</p><p>Harry normally worked odd jobs in town. He found himself doing very little outside of the home, preferring to spend his time in his room. He was with Hedwig, then, and all the material things he’d gotten from the wizarding world. Stuck in the muggle world, Harry wanted to pretend that he was already at school and studying for his classes.</p><p>He sat in his room and read.</p><p>Eventually, Harry dug out his old notebooks. He scribbled down questions he didn’t want to forget to ask the next time he could write to McGonagall. Spells were easy enough to memorize and understand, he even pretended to cast them using a pencil. But then there was the content in <em>Magical Theory</em> and <em>The Laws of Transfiguration</em> that brought up ideas and topics, but only briefly explained them.</p><p>Why was the number seven so magical? What were the exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Transfiguration? What was the one way one could change matter permanently? Why was transfiguring so inherently impermanent? What was the difference between Transfiguration and Alchemy? Questions filled up Harry’s head and distracted him. He even wrote out every way he could get to seven using math, in absolute boredom but also fueled by curiosity.</p><p>All Harry did, basically, for three days was read.</p><p>Then, one morning, Harry woke up to an eagle-owl sitting on his desk. It had a beautiful gold chain around its neck, attached to which was a matching cannister. He glanced at his window and wondered how it managed to get it open, considering he left it closed the previous night.</p><p>He could see some markings on the window-coverings, like they’d been clawed up in the process of getting it open.</p><p>Hedwig was awake, sitting up right by his head.</p><p>As he sat up, Hedwig moved and jumped off of the bed to stalk towards the desk.</p><p>“Hedwig, leave it alone,” Harry said quietly, before finally getting himself out of bed.</p><p>Harry opened the cannister and pulled out a roll of parchment. As soon as he did, the eagle-owl jumped off of his desk and swooped right back out of the window.</p><p>
  <em>To Harry Potter,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the 12<sup>th</sup> of July later this week, Gringotts requests your presence at noon to meet with your accountant, Garrast, to discuss the matter of your accounts, properties, and inheritance.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Reply if you’re unable to make it on the provided day and time. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Signed,<br/>Garrast, Accountant 75 of Gringotts Wizarding Bank in London, England</em>
</p><p>Harry read the letter and realized that the appointment was two days away. He looked at the window, where the owl had already flown out. He’d get a letter from McGonagall tonight, no doubt, but he had to hope that she wasn’t going to be busy when he needed to go. Otherwise, he’d have to figure out his own way there.</p><p>The entire day he sat on the floor of his room. Hedwig was curled up sleeping on his desk, on top of one of his old math schoolbooks. He was wasting time by recording music off of his stereo into the music player. It was a strangely difficult task to get a single song in and, before he knew it, he had to call it quits in order to go eat something.</p><p>Eating was feeling like a chore and a bad excuse to leave the world he’d created for himself in his room, with all his new things and with Hedwig. Still, he knew it was something he absolutely had to do. So, he dragged himself up and left the room at least once a day to eat.</p><p>That night, Harry was back on the floor of his room now with the music player with a button pushed down as it played back its recording of the first album he’d finally managed to have saved within it; <em>No Rest for the Wicked</em> by Ozzy Osbourne. He had his copy of <em>A History of Magic</em> laid open on his lap and he was trying to read about the Goblin Rebellions without getting upset.</p><p>He didn’t understand it.</p><p>The magical world was an amazing thing. It was, of course, magical. Harry would find his escape his escape in - he already had found a shelter underneath the idea of it the moment McGonagall took him to Diagon Alley. Soon, he’d leave the children’s home, and find a new home inside of it.</p><p>But, it seemed the magical world was as oblivious to its problems as the muggle world.</p><p>Goblins weren’t allowed to own wands. It was a leading factor to one of their rebellions. It was upsetting to Harry to have the injustices played out inside of the book, while still painting them in a bad light and even giving them unflattering nicknames. He would be upset, too, if another group of people decided he was inferior and wasn’t allowed to use a very useful tool in controlling magic.</p><p>Harry couldn’t believe that goblins, in all their ability to control the wizarding world’s finances, were oppressed. They ran the only bank Harry had seen in Diagon Alley. He didn’t understand why that didn’t mean anything. He was sure, too, they had ways around not having a wand otherwise that book that used his blood wouldn’t work. Still, it just didn’t seem very fair.</p><p>“I don’t get it, Hedwig.” He scratched behind his kitten’s right ear. She purred in response, eyes blinking slowly as they turned to stare at him. “Do you think it’s just how humans are? Terrible?”</p><p>She continued to purr.</p><p>He sighed. He guessed he couldn’t get an answer from a kitten.</p><p>“When you understand it, tell me,” He said. “I need some help with it,”</p><p>When McGonagall’s owl arrived, Harry immediately marked his page in the book and set it aside. He left the music playing and stood up, going straight for where the owl had perched itself on its usual spot, on Harry’s desk chair. He took its letter and the small package it carried for the night.</p><p>“I have something important for McGonagall today,” He said, as he opened up the letter. “So, try to fly faster today,”</p><p>The owl ignored him.</p><p>Harry discarded the letter to open the package, already knowing that it was another pink of fairy milk. He then opened the bottle and poured a small amount out into Hedwig’s dish. She got up and stretched, tail flicking back and forth as she slowly walked to drink her share.</p><p>Finally, Harry read the letter from McGonagall.</p><p>
  <em>Harry,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How have your books been? I hope you’re still enjoying Tales of Beedle the Bard. Some of the stories are very simple and plain, but it’s the base for much of wizarding literature. If you have an interest in more fiction stories, let me know. There’s a catalog from a book publisher very well known for the amazing stories it puts out and they sell copies of old muggle poems, too. Not as important to us, but still interesting.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your birthday is coming at the end of this month and, sadly, I have a commitment to help more students from the muggle world get their school supplies. However, I know an old friend of your mother’s that I’m sure would like to meet you before the school year begins. He’s a professor at Hogwarts, too.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Has Gringotts contacted you yet? If they don’t send a letter soon, please take my owl to send notice to them that you’re still waiting. Sometimes, they take too long. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sincerely,<br/>Minerva McGonagall</em>
</p><p>Harry laid out the letter and tore a piece off of his roll of parchment. He weighed down the corners, grabbed his quill, and opened a bottle of ink. He was trying to get used to writing with a quill over a pencil or pen. It was both easier, and not. His handwriting was already messy enough and trying to control the ink flow out of the quill was a little difficult. He’d already broken one, by somehow bending the nib.</p><p>He wrote back – saying, yes, he’d be interested in stories and telling her about his letter from Gringotts. He hesitated, though, at deciding whether or not he wanted to spend his birthday with someone he didn’t know.</p><p>He didn’t really know McGonagall, either. It would still be better than being at the children’s home. So, he said he would like that. He figured it would, at least, be someone once friends with his mother. He hadn’t asked very much about his parents, finding everything else much more interesting, but he supposed it was about time to try to learn about them.</p><p>Hedwig jumped up and swatted at McGonagall’s owl.</p><p>It hooted angrily and jumped into the air. Hedwig only jumped higher and swung her paw at its wing.</p><p>“Hedwig, play nice!” Harry scolded.</p><p>She meowed and marched back to her dish of fairy milk.</p><p>“I’m sorry, please come back here,” Harry said. “I need to respond to McGonagall,”</p><p>Reluctantly, the owl landed back down and took his response. She didn’t stick around for any pets tonight, though, and left right back out the window.</p><p>“You shouldn’t be such a bully,” Harry tried to scold, though he was smiling when he sat down next to his familiar and began to drink from the bottle.</p><p>Harry would receive a response the following morning from McGonagall. She told him that she would be there the next day to bring Harry to Gringotts for his appointment and to be ready in the morning, so they could stop for breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron before. She also told him that her mother’s old friend would come to the children’s home on his birthday and take him somewhere for the day, without saying where exactly.</p><p>He did the best he could to make the day go quickly so he could go to bed and wake up in the morning. He only left his room for lunch, where he found himself realizing that the word of him going to a public school in the fall had spread and the rumor blossomed into myth. More than one person came up to him to ask him a question like are his parents actually alive or if he’s being adopted or if his parents were part of the royal family.</p><p>He answered truthfully, but he was tempted not to.</p><p>For the most part, Harry just read as he usually did all day. He continued to take notes and write down questions he couldn’t answer himself. Since tomorrow he’d be with McGonagall, maybe she could answer some of them for him. Maybe even all.</p><hr/><p>Harry woke up on the 12<sup>th</sup> of July and immediately got out of bed. He got dressed and packed up what he’d need for the day; his money pouch, his wand just in case even if he couldn’t use it, a bag of treats of Hedwig, and, of course, Hedwig placed right into the biggest pouch where she could sit until he got them both out of the children’s home.</p><p>He wasn’t going to just leave her behind. She never got to see the outside of his room unless he went with her. She deserved a little adventure for the day, just as he did.</p><p>“Do you remember Diagon Alley?” He asked her. “It’s where McGonagall gave you to me,”</p><p>Hedwig meowed back at him. She understood, kind of, because she willingly curled up inside of his pack on top of the blanket he put in there to make it softer for her to lay down.</p><p>Before most of the home had even woken up and breakfast had just begun to be served, Harry sat outside waiting. Hedwig was quietly asleep in his pack, which was mostly zipped shut except for a hole on top.</p><p>McGonagall arrived in a pop. She stood only a few feet away from him.</p><p>“Harry.” She paused. “Have you already told the matron where you’re going today?” She asked.</p><p>“No, but it’s fine,” Harry said. “They won’t notice me being gone,”</p><p>She seemed to hesitate, so he said again, “It’s fine,” And she seemed to give into that.</p><p>“Take my hand, please. We’re going to Apparate to London.” She held her arm out and Harry gladly took it.</p><p>“By the way, um, Hedwig’s in my backpack with me,” He told her. “I thought she deserved to get out today,”</p><p>McGonagall smiled. “I think you’re right, Harry,”</p><p>Within minutes, McGonagall and Harry were sitting down at the Leaky Cauldron. It wasn’t as busy as it had been the last time they were there, which Harry didn’t mind. He would prefer to go unnoticed, knowing now how people react to him once they realize who he is. He even pulled his bangs over his face, even though the strands cover some of his vision.</p><p>“Perhaps, today, we can stop somewhere to get you new glasses,” McGonagall commented across from him. “While we’re here, we should take advantage of it,”</p><p>“My glasses are fine,” Harry said. “What’s wrong with them?”</p><p>“Nothing’s wrong with them,” She reassured. “However, I can tell that they’re old and I can see the paint chipping. You can get a fine pair of glasses here in Diagon Alley. Though I know muggles have a lot of interesting technology, I believe a pair of magical glasses will serve you much better than those you’re wearing now,”</p><p>Harry nodded. He’d take her word for it.</p><p>The waitress, Nott again, took their order for breakfast and their drinks. Harry also ordered a saucer of milk and a chunk of raw meat for Hedwig, too. When she dropped off their drinks, she stopped and asked him, “Have you given any thought to what House you want to be in?”</p><p>“I still don’t know,” Harry said. “I read pieces of <em>Hogwarts, A History</em> but it didn’t really help. It’s not like I decide,”</p><p>“It’s fun to try to guess, though,” She said. “Give a good thought to Ravenclaw. If you’re already reading up your books, you might be with us,”</p><p>After Nott left, Harry dug out of his notebook and began to ask all of the questions he had wanted answered. He did sometimes send his questions to McGonagall in his letters, but never all and not even close to most.</p><p>He asked and she answered.</p><p>First, he asked about Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.</p><p>“It’s very complex, Harry. You’ll learn the details in time,” She said.</p><p>“What about the exceptions, then? I don’t understand it. It says we can’t create food, but then there’s other charms just in the spell book that seem like they could be used to make more,” Harry had read through his books, even though a lot of the reading was really just skimming over the text. He hadn’t been able to get a satisfying answer, yet.</p><p>“You cannot create good food,” She said. “When we transfigure objects into animals, they lack any nutritional value and, in fact, when the animal dies, they’ll revert to their original state. Whether that was a cup or nothingness. When we enlarge food form it’s original state or cause it to multiply, the duplicates lack any true substance to it. There are theories that, through a careful ritual constructing these things from the smallest piece up, then it could be done. However, that requires a lot of magic and understanding of matter which then brings you into alchemy,”</p><p>“Alchemy?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Alchemy is, basically, the mixture of arthimancy, runes, and transfiguration,” She explained. “It’s something you won’t be able to learn at Hogwarts. Even I don’t have the strongest grasp on it. If you ever have an interest in it, you’ll have to find a master willing to teach you after graduation,”</p><p>Harry bit down on his bottom lip. “I guess that answers my question, sort of,” He said. “It’s like science. Energy can’t be destroyed or created,”</p><p>McGonagall smiled. “Exactly. Our magic only allows us to manipulate what’s around us, what we are, and what it is,”</p><p>Hedwig meowed so, Harry reached out to scratch behind her ear.</p><p>“Magic, Harry, is very complicated,” McGonagall said. “Even I don’t understand it. I’d dare so no one ever has. We strive to understand it, it’s often the purpose of our lives as witches and wizards, but it is seemingly unreachable. My mother used to say, we would understand magic only when we die because, when we die, we’ll become one with magic again,”</p><p>Harry frowned.</p><p>They ate their breakfast – and Hedwig ate, too, before jumping onto Harry’s shoulder where she curled up to take a nap – then left the Leaky Cauldron. As they exited out into Diagon Alley, Harry saw the man who had given him the necklace smile and wave. He waved back. Luckily, no one in the pub seemed to notice.</p><p>At Gringotts, Harry was lead away from McGonagall into one of the days leading off from the main chamber. Unlike before, when he accessed the vault, the door lead not into a rocky area, but instead another beautiful, marble hall. Though, of course, plenty more narrow and a shorter ceiling.</p><p>Along the walls, there were portraits of goblins in fine attire and large jewelry. There were display cases containing gold objects. The columns were decorated with gems embedded into stone. It was a lot and amazing to see. He kept looking around and almost walked right past the goblin guiding him to his accountant, who had stopped at a door.</p><p>His accountant’s office was large and just as beautiful as the hallway. Behind a large, intricately carved desk was a massive leather chair. Above, hung on the wall, was a polished bronze sword with a gem-encrusted gold handle. The walls were covered with bookshelves, but between neat lines of thick books were beautifully painted ceramic pots and vases, crystal jars, and figurines made in all sorts of polished metal.</p><p>The goblin who guided him to the office suddenly exited. Finally, Harry noticed the goblin in a near corner of the room flipping through a book.</p><p>“I apologize,” The goblin spoke, voice higher than other goblins Harry had encountered so far. When the goblin looked up, Harry realized the goblin was female – at least judging by her slightly softer features. “I’ve been very busy as of late. Another client of mine lost gold in a bad investment, not listening to my advice mind you.” She shook her head and closed the book she was reading and slid it back into the bookshelf. “Reading is what your kind calls coping for me. Please, sit down,”</p><p>Harry sat down on the couch in front of the desk while the goblin walked around and took her spot at the large leather chair.</p><p>She was, Harry realized, bigger than the other goblins he’s seen, too. By a lot, considering he noticed it.</p><p>“My name is Garrast. I’ve been named your accountant. Apparently, it’s been about five years since someone last handled any of your accounts. I’ve already had some simple maintenance and work done,” She began. “I have two new keys for two vaults.” She leaned to the side and opened a drawer on her side. She set two shiny bronze keys on top of her desk.</p><p>“This,” She pointed to the left one. “Is for vault 687. This one is for vault 349. I suggest making vault 349 your personal vault while vault 687 remains as the Potter family vault,”</p><p>Harry nodded. He already felt lost. He said so.</p><p>“That’s fine,” She said. “Most witches and wizards don’t understand most of what we do, anyways. Now!” She pushed the keys forward and gestured for him to take both. He did. “I would like to discuss, first, you making some investments,”</p><p>“Didn’t you just say someone lost a bunch of gold?” Harry asked, as he fingered the keys. Strange characters, different on each one, were engraved along the side.</p><p>“My client hadn’t listened to me,” She said. “I pride myself in being one of the best, understand? Now, vault 687 has an estimated two hundred thousand galleons. This is a massive wealth. I believe, if you allow me to take ten percent of that into investing in businesses, we could potentially increase it incredibly!”</p><p>Harry blinked. “I guess,” He said.</p><p>Garrast’s grin was wide – revealing her many sharp teeth.</p><p>He signed a lot of paperwork. He thought maybe he was done, but it appeared not when she started to talk about his properties and unclaimed inheritance.</p><p>“You own a blown up cottage in Godric’s Hollow and a manor in ruins in Ireland,” Garrast said. “I suggest we sell the cottage in Godric’s Hollow to the Ministry for some quick gold, they’ll make it into a monument of some kind probably, and then we can maybe start repairing the manor,”</p><p>“I need a home,” Harry said. “In the magical world. I live with muggles right now and I don’t want to be,”</p><p>“The manor would be perfect for that,” Garrast said. “Now, considering its state, I could connect you to some repairmen and builders. Or, you could make a contract with Gringotts to do the work for you. We’ll put the manor into its original state with our own touch, and it’ll cost, but it would be very beautiful. Us goblins do the best work, don’t you think?”</p><p>She was grinning sharp again.</p><p>Harry frowned. “How much?” He asked.</p><p>“Well, probably fifty thousand galleons,” She admitted. “We would need to get you a proper quote by first visiting the manor and the property,”</p><p>“So I have two hundred thousand and I already lost, like, twenty thousand to investing. I’d be down to, like, a hundred thousand already,” Harry said.</p><p>“You have much more gold, Harry,” She soothed. “You have vault 349, which has an estimated fifteen thousand galleons worth inside. There’s also the matter of your unclaimed inheritance, from the Black family,”</p><p>“Black family?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Your godfather, Sirius Black, left you everything in his name. When his father died, Sirius inherited the House of Black in its entirety. Since he’s incapacitated, it’s fallen to you. This is two more vaults, the family vault with Sirius Black’s personal vault as well. The gold in vault 801 is immense, Mr. Potter. You won’t miss any of this gold, I promise you,” Garrast reassured.</p><p>Harry gave in. He signed more paperwork. She then, finally, had him sign other paperwork to begin the process of obtaining the other vaults.</p><p>“There will be a delay, but I’m sure it’ll go smoothly. Either, we need proof from the Ministry that Sirius Black can no longer sign anything, or his signature,” Garrast said. “Personally, I’m sure he won’t be able to sign anything at all.” She chuckled darkly.</p><p>He didn’t know what she meant by that. He didn’t ask, either. He already felt overwhelmed and he just wanted to be by McGonagall again. He knew she would be able to answer all of his questions, including the ones blooming about Sirius Black.</p><p>When Harry was done at Gringotts, his vault was missing a lot of gold though Garrast promised that there would be plenty more come the investments he’d agreed to make. He wasn’t sure about the unclaimed thing, either, or this manor he apparently owned. It was a lot to take in at once.</p><p>McGonagall took him to an ice cream parlor, before she would take him to the place to get him a new pair of glasses. She purchased him a scoop of blood-flavored ice cream topped with chocolate syrup and raspberry syrup.</p><p>They sat at a table outside. Harry fed a spoonful of his ice cream to Hedwig, or he tried to. She took a lick and decided against having any more.</p><p>“McGonagall, you knew my parents, right?” He asked.</p><p>“I did,” She said.</p><p>“My accountant mentioned my godfather today. He left me, like, everything, but she didn’t make it sound like he’s dead. What happened to him?” Harry asked. “I didn’t ask her, because I thought maybe she wouldn’t know, but, you would, right? Since you knew my parents?”</p><p>McGonagall’s face fell the moment he had said the word ‘godfather’. She closed her eyes and sighed. The sadness was obvious and Harry was never good at seeing emotion perfectly, but he could tell this time.</p><p>“Your godfather was Sirius Black,” She said softly. “Long ago, when your parents went into hiding, he was entrusted with the information of where they were. They knew You-Know-Who was after them, after all. Powerful wards were put into place, including one that made it so that only Sirius Black, as the Secret Keeper, could say where they were. However…”</p><p>“He wasn’t killed, though, was he?” Harry dug the spoon as deep as he could into the ice cream. It was already beginning to melt.</p><p>“Worse,” McGonagall said. “He betrayed them. He joined You-Know-Who. He told them their whereabouts. After their murder, I believe he lost his mind. He became a mass murderer,”</p><p>Harry swallowed the spit in his mouth. “Why did he still leave me all of his money?”</p><p>“I can’t say,” She admitted. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask about him, but the only thing that I’ve been able to guess is that maybe You-Know-Who told him he would spare you. I knew he loved you dearly, but after the betrayal…Well, I thought maybe he wanted you to live. But these are just thoughts, Harry. The war bred treachery. Things are peaceful now. Friends can still turn out to not be true, but not like it was before,”</p><p>“He’s not dead, then?” He twisted his spoon.</p><p>“No. He’s in Azkaban Prison,” She said.</p><p>He didn’t pause before he asked, “Is there a way I could write him? I know kids who write their parents and siblings who are locked up.”</p><p>“You could write him, if you wanted,” McGonagall said. “However, Harry, I suggest that you don’t. He still betrayed your parents and I can’t guarantee he would have the best intentions in regards to you,”</p><p>“He’s still my godfather. He’s technically the only family I have left,” Harry shot back, feeling upset. “Look at everything he left me. I have a right to know something about him,”</p><p>He never met his parents. He hadn’t thought about them since he left the Dursley’s and he entered the system. He lived with the belief that his father was a drunk, that his parents died in a car crash of their own making. He still didn’t know them just because it turned out that was a lie and that they were magical. In fact, now, he felt like he knew them even less.</p><p>And, this man, Sirius Black, must not hate him. Why else would he leave all of his wealth to Harry? Even if it was nothing, and Harry was just holding out hope for family, at least maybe he could get an answer as to why leave him everything.</p><p>McGonagall sighed. “If you write him, you must address it first to the Ministry of Magic, then Azkaban Prison, then his name,” She said, softly. “I hope you change your mind, Harry,”</p><p>The subject was changed after that. Harry finished his ice cream, then went to a shop where he was fit for a new pair of glasses that he was promised would grow with his head for the next ten years. They were much like his old pair, the ones his Aunt Petunia had shoved into his face but the pair he’d broken while being moved around before landing at the home. Only, this pair was made out of gold wire and dipped in a potion that the worker said would make it so Harry would always see best while wearing them.</p><p>Harry made them, also, stop at the menagerie. He purchased a rat for Hedwig to chase around and eat. She was still very tiny, but she seemed to like to chase things around and kill them. When she could, that is.</p><p>McGonagall frowned deeply when Harry admitted he bought the rat for Hedwig to hunt, but she said nothing.</p><p>It wasn’t until that night when Harry realized that he had no way to even send a letter to Sirius Black without an owl. Not until he remembered seeing an owl post at Diagon Alley.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This was SUCH a filler chapter. There really wasn't very much in terms of actual development, other than character development, I suppose. Or maybe I just feel like that because I didn't realize it was so long and it seems like nothing really interesting even happened...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Knockturn Alley Mistakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry came up with a plan – a means to get to London on his own, without McGonagall, so he could write to Sirius Black.</p><p>He didn’t have an owl, so he’d have to either borrow McGonagall’s owl or get to the owl post at Diagon Alley. He chose the latter, naturally. He doubted McGonagall would want to help him very much and he didn’t know if he trusted her enough to not sabotage him. She didn’t seem very agreeable with him writing to Sirius. People always did weird things ‘for your own good’ and he didn’t want to deal with that.</p><p>So, he’d have to get to the owl post in London. The first thing that he had a problem with was getting to London on his own. That meant he’d need muggle money to get a ticket for the train then for cab fair to find Leaky Cauldron, then a ticket back.</p><p>Instead of dumping out the contents of his jar, he took the necklace he was given during his first visit at Diagon by the stranger and went to the pawn shop in town. With the cash he was given, he’d be able to buy his tickets. He knew he’d have to break into his jar for the cab fair.</p><p>Despite having all the gold he knew he had at Gringotts, dumping out his jar to pick out the money he’d need felt wrong. It was all money he’d saved up since he was seven years old, barely touched except for emergencies.</p><p>This didn’t count as an emergency, he thought. But he couldn’t stand to wait.</p><p>On the 14<sup>th</sup> of July, Harry loaded up his backpack and hid Hedwig, getting bigger, underneath his shirt instead of his pack. He left the home after telling everyone he was going into town to see if there was any work he could get. Nothing unusual, even if he hadn’t done it in a while.</p><p>“I’ll get you another rat,” Harry told Hedwig as they left the grounds of the children’s home.</p><p>She meowed, upset. She preferred the pack, but she didn’t fit as easily today as usual. She was getting better and Harry had put a lot into his pack today.</p><p>His money, his wand, his music player and his Walkman, a couple books to flip through on the train ride, and the letter he’d already written to send to Sirius.</p><p>At the station, Harry bought his ticket to London and waited for the train. He gave into the hunger paining his stomach and purchased a hamburger to eat. He gave a piece of the meat to Hedwig. He was the first person on the platform to board the train.</p><p>He took out his Walkman and listened to Judas Priest’s <em>Sad Wings of Destiny</em> while he read through <em>One Thousands Herbs and Fungi</em>. Only occasionally adjusting himself, so Hedwig could get a little more comfortable or to pet her.</p><p>When the train finally reached London, Harry slid the headphones off his ears to rest around his neck. He stuffed his book away and stood up, arm curled around himself to keep Hedwig in place.</p><p>Harry exited out of the station and found himself on a completely unrecognizable street.</p><p>Right.</p><p>He started to walk, hoping that eventually he would figure out where to go.</p><p>After about ten minutes, Harry’s luck won out. He saw a giant man walking across the street, talking up most of the sidewalk forcing others to squeeze themselves around him. He wasn’t only ginormous, but he was dressed in old clothes that looked like a bunch of robes sewn together with a large, leather cloak draped over himself.</p><p>He followed the giant man.</p><p>Luck was really on Harry’s side, definitely, because not only did he find a probably magical man, the man was definitely magical and led him straight to the Leaky Cauldron!</p><p>Hedwig meowed testily in his shirt and he stopped. He pulled her out and sat her on his shoulders.</p><p>“Okay, we’re almost in Diagon,” Harry said. Ignoring a couple of suspicious glances thrown his way by muggles, he stood still in front of the Leaky Cauldron for the next five minutes at least before he finally walked inside.</p><p>The old pub was busy. There were people everywhere, more than he’d seen on his previous visits. Including the giant man taking up multiple seats at the bar, there was a very pale man with sharp teeth talking to a blushing woman, a group of teenagers giggling to each other where they sat around a table, a man stuffing his pipe while he talked to another who was very short with sharp ears, and even more yet!</p><p>Owls and other families making noises. People talking. The sound of glasses hitting wood as they were slammed down after someone gulped down the contents.</p><p>As he walked through, two men got into a fist fight and tumbled to the ground before breaking out in laughs.</p><p>Harry went to the back wall and stopped.</p><p>How was he supposed to do this?</p><p>Suddenly, the bartender leaned over the counter. “Need a little help, kid?” He asked.</p><p>Harry looked at him and slowly nodded, trying to squash the burn trying to rise in his cheeks.</p><p>“Hey, Hagrid! Care to help the kid out a bit?” The bartender told the giant man sitting at the counter.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry, I got him!” The giant man jumped off his bar seats.</p><p>“Thank you,” Harry said as the man pulled out an umbrella and tapped a brick.</p><p>As the hole grew, the giant man just nodded. “Ain’t a problem! Now, get running along, back to yer parents,” He said.</p><p>Harry just smiled and nodded, before bolting into the alley. He was grateful that none of them recognized him.</p><p>He went straight through Diagon Alley, walking until he found the owl post.</p><p>Nearby an unmarked entrance to what looked like another alley, there was an owl post standing up tall with a sign labeling it as <em>Diagon Alley Owl Post</em>.</p><p>Inside, Harry waited in line anxiously. It was a busy place. Seemed like Harry wasn’t the only person without easy access to an owl. After a short while, he was standing in front of the clerk who asked him, “Where to?”</p><p>“Azkaban Prison,” Harry said.</p><p>The clerk paused. “Uh, seriously?” He asked.</p><p>Harry nodded.</p><p>It cost an entire galleon to attach his letter to the leg of a long-distance owl. The clerk apologized for the expensiveness, but explained that the time the owl would be gone would be longer than even the usual long-distance delivery.</p><p>“The Ministry handles their mail for their inmates slower than syrup,” The clerk said. “Last time we sent a letter out to them, I think it took two weeks before we got a response,”</p><p>It was already mid-way into July. Harry hoped he’d get something before his birthday, at least.</p><p>He thanked the clerk and left the post.</p><p>“Well, we have a day left,” He told Hedwig as he started to walk.</p><p>Diagon Alley was crowded, too. He found himself ducking into the other street just to get away from a particularly large group of people moving straight down the alley.</p><p>The side street he’d walked into was a lot different to the rest of Diagon Alley. The buildings were a bit taller, the colors muted and darker, and, weirdly enough, it seemed as though the sun just didn’t shine as bright. He realized that it was just the buildings’ height blocking out the light, though, as he walked in deeper.</p><p>It was an interesting place. The shops had things like poisonous candles, giant spiders, and charmed objects advertised in small signs and posters. Most of the buildings lacked windows or if they did have a window, it was so dirty he couldn’t even see through it.</p><p>There weren’t many people either. Whenever someone started to stare at him too deeply, Hedwig made a noise and they looked away.</p><p>On whim, Harry slipped into a shop.</p><p>It was a mishmash inside. Books were lined up against one wall, animal cages against the other, and aisles made up of shelves containing random knickknacks. Hedwig didn’t make a noise, though she turned her head around and around to look at everything.</p><p>The wizard at the counter didn’t greet him, nor did he seem to be paying very much attention to Harry. He was reading a book, actually. And much like the shop itself, he was dressed shabbily with greasy, blond hair.</p><p>He wandered aimlessly through the store. He stopped in the middle of two shelves to stare at a small, cracked skull sitting on an unpolished brass pedestal. Along the bone, he could see small runes carved into it and hold right through the top.</p><p>Next to the skull, was a bronze torso about the size of Harry’s hand. It laid on its back, with bronze arms and legs laid by it. He didn’t see a head anywhere near the pieces.</p><p>There was a lot of strange objects lined down the shelves. More skulls, more bronze sculptures, shiny rocks, giant gems carved into with strange alphabets, empty vials, and dusty scrolls. The only thing that truly caught his eye was a book with a solid gold covers bound with a chainlink spine.</p><p>When he picked up the book, it was very heavy. There wasn’t any title on it. He opened it and flipped through the pages, finding only blank pages.</p><p>He decided to put it back. Even if it was pretty, he had no interest in buying something that would only look pretty. What would he even write in an empty book like that?</p><p>Harry went through the wall made up entirely of books next. He ended up pulling a single book out; <em>The Dark Arts</em> by Ella Max. He flipped through the pages and realized that most of it wasn’t even talking about spells, it was all just magical theory. He could guess the Dark Arts wasn’t the most acceptable thing in the magical world, but surely the magical theory of it couldn’t be too bad. Why would they be selling it at some store, if it were?</p><p>Plus, it had a really cool illustration halfway through of a fully nude woman and man being submerged in a pot filled with water and a satyr watching, laughing. It looked like it would make a really cool album cover, though he doubted any band could get away with such an image very easily.</p><p>Out of whim, Harry walked around to the cages. In them, he saw animals he hadn’t seen at the menagerie. Snakes, brightly colored birds, strange lizards that breathed fire, and even a tiny glowing thing that buzzed around angrily in a jar!</p><p>“Get me out of here!”</p><p>A cage rattled.</p><p>Harry gave easy into his curiosity and peered into the cage, finding a snake very angrily ramming itself up against the metal bars.</p><p>“You can talk?” He asked it, shocked. He didn’t know there were talking animals in the magical world, but he guessed there was bound to be something that could talk that couldn’t without magic.</p><p>The snake stared at him.</p><p>“What’s the matter?” He asked it.</p><p>“I want out!” The snake responded. “The cage is terrible! I want to go!”</p><p>“I could help you,” He offered. “I could buy you,”</p><p>The snake hissed. “I belong to no puny human!”</p><p>Harry squinted. “I’m a lot bigger than you,” He said.</p><p>“So?” The snake slammed itself against the cage again.</p><p>“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Harry warned. “Just, let me help you, okay? Stop acting so crazy,”</p><p>When Harry turned around, the wizard from the counter was standing right in front of him.</p><p>“I want to purchase the snake,” Harry said, trying not to sound as nervous as he suddenly felt with the wizard shaking barely two feet from him.</p><p>The wizard collapsed to the ground, on his knees. “My Lord!” He cried out. He reached out and grabbed at Harry’s pants, starting to sob. “I can’t believe, I can’t believe it! You’re alive! I thought all hope was lost!”</p><p>Harry’s eyed widened. “I just want the snake,” He said.</p><p>“Yes, yes! Take whatever you want, my Lord. Whatever you want!” The man sobbed. “It’s all yours!”</p><p>Harry turned around and unlocked the cage, holding his hand out. “Just go onto my arm for now, okay? I’ll let you loose when we’re out of here,”</p><p>The snake hissed, but listened. It slithered around his bare forearm, clenching down tight enough for it to almost hurt. Thankfully, it wasn’t too large of a snake. Out of the dark cage, he could see the snake’s white and grey scales.</p><p>He looked down at the wizard still holding onto him, still sobbing.</p><p>“Let go!” He kicked his leg.</p><p>The man did, still sobbing on the ground.</p><p>“The puny human knows your worth, big human,” The snake rubbed the underside of its head against Harry’s skin. “You’re a speaker, yes, yes, you’re not puny. I forget, I forget,”</p><p>Harry didn’t know what was happening. He just knew he wanted to leave. He hadn’t even noticed Hedwig had begun to meow angrily on his shoulder until he took a step back away from the wizard on the floor.</p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want any payment?” He asked.</p><p>“Never, my Lord!” The man looked up, face streaked with tears.</p><p>“Right.” Harry quickly left the shop after that.</p><p>He waited until he almost out of the dark street before he stopped to let the snake loose.</p><p>Except, when he bent down to try to let it go, the snake refused.</p><p>“I will stay with the speaker,” The snake said. “You saved me and you are not puny. I will stay,”</p><p>Hedwig didn’t say a thing, so Harry just gave in.</p><p>“Fine, but you’re going to have to hide when I tell you to,” Harry said.</p><p>“Yes, speaker,”</p><p>Great.</p><hr/><p>In the shadows of Knockturn Alley, Quirinus Quirrell stood watching a scrawny boy hiss back at a snake curled up around his arm. It was the first time he had heard a Parselmouth truly speak and not understood – he could hear what his Lord said, because they were almost one, but he couldn’t ever understand the snake being spoken to. It was an interesting experience.</p><p>When the boy moved, Quirinus saw a scar on his forehead mostly hidden by the fringe of his hair.</p><p>The Boy-Who-Lived was a Parselmouth?</p><p>“Is he Harry Potter?” Quirinus quietly asked, still watching.</p><p><em>I can sense it!</em> his Lord whispered to him, louder than usual.</p><p>The boy suddenly jumped, whipping his head around and staring into the shadows.</p><p>Quirinus quickly stepped back and disguised himself with a wordless, wandless spell. One of the few things he could cast was a hiding charm, though it was becoming increasingly difficult to cast as he gave more and more of himself over to his Lord.</p><p><em>He can sense me, it seems</em>, his Lord whispered.</p><p>“Should we follow him?” He still watched. The boy was exiting Knockturn Alley, with the snake on his arm now hidden away underneath his shirt.</p><p><em>He knows not the worth of his ability, or he would’ve hidden it</em>, his Lord whispered.</p><p>Quirinus stayed where he was, staring until he couldn’t see the boy anymore. “It’s a surprise, isn’t it? To find him speaking Parseltongue?”</p><p><em>It is. It’s also worrying. I don’t know what he knows and we have no means of finding that out until he starts his school year. I require us to go to the pawnshop now,</em> his Lord whispered.</p><p>Quirinus nodded. He wanted to ask why, but that wasn’t his place. He would simply do as told.</p><p><em>I believe they will have something of interest, if they still have it. If not, we’ll hunt it down,</em> his Lord whispered.</p><p>He didn’t ask what the something of interest was, either. He trusted his Lord entirely. He walked straight until he was entered the pawn shop, stopping to concentrate. It took only a second to drag his consciousness backward and to allow his Lord to take over.</p><p>It was exhausting and could only be done for a short period of time, but it was sometimes necessary when his Lord wanted to do something himself.</p><p>His Lord walked forward and stopped at the counter.</p><p>“Borgin,” His Lord greeted. “I want to purchase the Mirror of Gnikool,”</p><p>The clerk stared. “I no longer have it,” Borgin said. “It’s been gone for years! Perhaps, you would be interested in-“</p><p>“I’m interested in nothing but who you sold the mirror to,” His Lord said. His Lord reached into the pocket of their robes and pulled out a pouch of gold. He tossed it onto the counter and stared bored at Borgin.</p><p>Borgin grabbed the pouch eagerly and opened it, peering inside. “It was bought by Abraxas Malfoy when he came looking for its companion mirror. Since I did not have the Mirror of Erised, he took the Mirror of Gnikool,” He said simply.</p><p>His Lord narrowed their eyes. “Abraxas Malfoy?” He asked.</p><p>“Yes, I said so!” Borgin huffed, dragging the pouch closer.</p><p>“For that amount of gold, I want to know when he purchased it,” His Lord hissed.</p><p>“1983,” Borgin said. “Man was mad, truly.” He chuckled darkly.</p><p>Without saying anymore more, his Lord took their body from the store. As soon as the first step was made past the door, his Lord relinquished control.</p><p>Quirinus shook slightly as he fell back into control of own limbs.</p><p><em>Abraxas Malfoy was a close follower once, like you,</em> his Lord whispered.</p><p>“A Malfoy sounds hard to contact,” Quirinus said. “And dangerous,”</p><p><em>No, Abraxas can be trusted. Not his spawn! Only Abraxas. I know how to contact him, to see if he still possesses the Mirror of Gnikool</em>, his Lord said.</p><p>Quirinus nodded. “Yes, my Lord,”</p><p>He would do whatever was required of him.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oof. I keep splitting some chapters up? My bad lmfao but it just ~flows~ better, I swear</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Severus Snape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rest of July passed like a knife slicing through cold butter.</p><p>Harry managed to read through most of his books. He never really read anything before. Most books were boring to him. He enjoyed reading stories and listening to his music, imagining worlds far from the one he was in. But his books from Diagon Alley provided him with the world far from the children’s home, one that was a very, very real even if, sometimes, in the deepest corners of his mind, he doubted its existence and that this would end up being some cruel joke.</p><p>He even got through the book he got from that strange store. The writer, a witch named Ella Max, had written a short chapter at the beginning of the book listing her name, the name of her parents to her great-great-grandparents. She wrote, also, her siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews, and her children. It was strange and unlike what he’d seen in other books. However, the book was also published in 1867. It wasn’t a first print, it seemed, but it also wasn’t very recently made to be sold. He wondered if that was just how books used to be.</p><p>It didn’t matter, of course, it just made him think for a while.</p><p>He had begun to go through some of his books, taking his quill and scratching notes into the margins or underlining things he thought were important. He continued to write down questions he had but recently found a lot of them came from <em>The Dark Arts</em> because it explained so much while seeming to avoid so much more.</p><p>The author said Dark magic was a deviation from magic, manipulated by the human mind and human soul that allowed them to craft magic into something incredibly unique. It explained that coming with that, Dark magic was often fueled by strong emotions like anger, sadness, or want. It was claimed, in the book, that the only form of ‘Light’ magic was still yet very primitive and fueled by other strong emotions like joy and love.</p><p>Harry wondered if it was truly so much easier for humans to manipulate magic on feelings of anger and sadness, than anything good.</p><p>Then, later, when he was thinking about it and scratching Hedwig’s head while the snake was out hunting – Harry realized it would be a lot easier to draw on negative emotions versus his positive ones, though he’s much more joyful now than he has been ever before. Or, at least, since Ms. Sweet. If he had to pull on memories, he would more really bad ones than really good ones. He used to believe that wasn't normal, but perhaps it was. Maybe all witches and wizards were doomed to a sad life. Why else would Dark magic progress, while Light magic remained, as the book described, primitive. </p><p>Other than his reading, he also had his letters with McGonagall. She didn’t ask him about sending a letter to Sirius Black, so he didn’t mention it. As a result, he also didn’t mention his visit to that store or the result from it.</p><p>His snake was, sort of, a second familiar. It went unnamed because it insisted it had no interest in something so unimportant. It slept at night and crawled around the day, though sometimes it took naps in the windowsill when it was pushed open to bathe in the sun. When it came from hunting, it would usually request to sleep somewhere against Harry’s skin so it could be warm while it digested its meal.</p><p>At least, Hedwig seemed to like the snake. When she laid down, she would allow it to curl up against it. She even seemed to take care to not scratch it with her claws. Recently, Harry had begun to let her out to go hunting with the snake. She brought back dead things to share because she hadn’t yet seemed to realize that Harry didn’t want to eat rats or birds or small reptiles.</p><p>His snake had grown some and Hedwig was also. He worried about getting caught with them, but he figured as long as Madam Charlotte didn’t decide on a surprise inspection, he’d be fine. She hadn’t bothered him very much recently, probably because he was hardly ever seen anymore.</p><p>Two days before his birthday, Harry received a letter from McGonagall with a reminder that a friend of his mother’s, a man she identified as Severus Snape, was still prepared to come to him on his birthday to spend the day together. She asked if he was still okay with it. He said yes, even if he still felt cautious and slightly unsure.</p><p>The next night, he received a letter from Severus Snape. He requested that Harry meet him in town, at the train station. He didn’t say what they’d do after that. He considered not going, feeling uneasy about meeting someone he truly knew nothing about increasingly so, but he couldn’t just not trust everybody ever. At least, he’d be able to spend his birthday outside of the children’s home.</p><p>So, on the day of his eleventh birthday, Harry left the home with Hedwig hidden grumpily in his backpack and the snake wrapped around his waist. As soon as he was far enough away, he stopped and let Hedwig out of the backpack. She meowed at him before sitting down on his shoulder.</p><p>Clackson was moving at a fast pace at noon. People were out for lunch, whether working men or families celebrating the nice day to have a picnic. At the train station, he overheard a tired mother trying to herd a group of children together encouraging them with promises of a zoo. He also saw a man holding another man’s hand, trying to tug him towards a food stand.</p><p>He didn’t know what he was looking for. Harry stood near the entrance, patient, as the sun beat down on him.</p><p>After a minute, a man dressed in all black with dark hair and dark eyes arrived quietly in the shower of a lamppost. Somehow, no one noticed his sudden arrival. Apparation, Harry remembered, was awfully handy for the older people who could do it.</p><p>The man walked forward and greeted him, “Mr. Potter,”</p><p>“Severus Snape?” Harry asked hesitantly.</p><p>“Yes.” The man looked at the cat sitting on Harry’s shoulder. “Your familiar?” He asked, hand reaching out and stopping in front of Hedwig’s nose.</p><p>Hedwig sniffed Snape’s fingers, meowed, then, allowed him to scratch the top of her head.</p><p>“Her name’s Hedwig,” Harry said.</p><p>“It’s…A nice name,” Snape said.</p><p>They stood in silence, until the man spoke again. “Do you have any requests on how to spend your birthday?” He asked.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “I’ve never really been able to choose to do anything for my birthday,”</p><p>“Hm.” Snape folded his hands together. “Your mother used to enjoy attending dueling matches. I’m sure there’s some happening today.”</p><p>“Dueling matches?” Harry grinned. “I’ve read some about them,”</p><p>“I promise you, dueling matches aren’t as formal as the books want them to be,” Snape said. He unfolded his hands and placed one on Harry’s shoulder, giving him no warning before they were Apparating away from Clackson.</p><p>They reappeared in front of a massive, purple and yellow striped tent. Harry almost stumbled, but he caught himself quickly enough. Snape’s Apparation was a little more smooth than McGonagall’s, but still wasn’t something he was used to.</p><p>“Where are we?” Harry turned his head side to side, examining the large, open field.</p><p>Other than the massive tent, he could see a line of stalls of people selling food, drinks, and merchandise. There seemed to be hundreds of witches and wizards and humanoid beings, all moving through the stalls and some entering the tent. He could see owls flying high above in the sky, cats and dogs wandering the grounds, and he’s pretty sure he saw a beast with a long scaly tail sitting on top of someone’s head before they were consumed by a crowd of people.</p><p>“I was right,” Snape said. “This is the location where they host matches. They never really say when they’re going to happen unless it’s a big one,”</p><p>“This isn’t big?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Only British witches and wizards, today, I believe,” Snape said. “The international matches are much more interesting. Come, I’ll buy you lunch,”</p><p>Snape purchased Harry a really bad lunch; A bag of popcorn, a large carbonated beverage that tasted like raspberries stuffed in a glass bottle, a bag of Every Flavor Beans which he was reassured truly meant every flavor, and an armful of other assorted, wizarding candy. Snape even got a small dish of eggs and milk for Hedwig to have once they were in the tent and sitting down.</p><p>“This stuff is amazing,” Harry said after tasting a bean that tasted like ground black pepper. It was disgusting and made his nose hurt, but it was still so bizarrely interesting.</p><p>“Until you get one flavored like pus,” Snape told him, sounding amused despite his voice simultaneously sounding slightly monotone.</p><p>Harry couldn’t believe he was doubting having this experience initially. He should’ve trusted Snape the moment McGonagall mentioned him spending his birthday with someone. If his mother was friends with someone, surely that meant they were a good person, right?</p><p>They entered the tent after acquiring the massive amount of junk food. Snape paid two galleons to a man at the entrance, who handed them two tickets and allowed them inside. Harry followed Snape up the seats until they were halfway to the top. There weren’t too many people inside yet, allowing them to get the seats right in the middle overlooking the performance floor.</p><p>“Dueling isn’t like what you might have read,” Snape said as Harry started to munch on his popcorn. “It won’t be very formal except on monitored one on one matches. I don’t know what they’re doing today, but they often like to try to reenact old battles,”</p><p>“What kind of magic are they allowed to use?” Harry asked. “I don’t really get a lot of it. I have a book that says the Dark Arts is-“</p><p>“Dark magic isn’t allowed,” Snape said suddenly. “The Dark Arts isn’t something the common person likes to see used in a duel,”</p><p>Harry deflated. “Oh,”</p><p>Snape opened the dish of milk and eggs in his hands and set it down on the between them. Hedwig jumped down from Harry’s shoulders and began to lick it up.</p><p>“What’s going on?”</p><p>Harry winced when he heard the snake. He gently pat his middle and the snake quieted. He probably should have left the poor snake stay at the home, but he thought it would enjoy at least being brought somewhere new. He glanced at Snape, who thankfully didn’t notice Harry’s torso trying to talk.</p><p>“There are places to go, but that’s for when you’re older,” Snape said. “Those sort of matches are typically seventeen and older,”</p><p>Harry nodded.</p><p>Soon, the tent was filled with people. Everyone from outside had wandered inside, filling the seats up almost entirely. They were surrounded by the noise of people and familiars. Harry continued to eat his popcorn, stopping only to share it with Snape.</p><p>He saw the entrance close. As soon as the flaps were tightened shut, all the lights went out.</p><p>“WITCHES, WIZARDS, ALL OF YOU IN-BETWEEN, WELCOME TO THE JULY DUELING TOURNAMENT! SPONSORED BY GRINGOTTS BANK, THE BEST PLACE TO PUT YOUR GOLD, AND OGDEN’S OLD FIREWHISKEY, THE YUMMIEST, SPICIEST FIREWHISKEY IN ALL OF BRITAIN!”</p><p>Harry’s eyes widened as he tried to look around in the dark to find the source of the booming voice.</p><p>A light shot down from above and hit the center, revealing a tall man in blue robes with his wand pointed at his throat.</p><p>“BRING YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR TODAY’S FIRST DUEL!” The man put his hand in the air. People began to cheer and whoop. “PRESENTING, EARENDEL AVERY. TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE, VERSUS BENJAMIN BROWN, SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE!”</p><p>The light split into three, one staying on the man, while the other two beams went to either side to reveal two other men.</p><p>Both of them began to wave. The cheers increased in volume when Earendel Avery took a boy. He’s fairly certain he saw a witch faint.</p><p>“Showboating,” Snape criticized next to him.</p><p>“Who do you think will win?” Harry asked.</p><p>“I know Avery,” Snape said. “He’s an amazing duelist for his age, but Benjamin Brown is a former Auror and I’ve seen him duel before. It might be a narrow match,”</p><p>As the light filled the entire center, men coming up and through the seats started to take bets.</p><p>Harry grabbed his backpack and pulled out his pouch. He pulled out five gold coins and held his hand up.</p><p>“Five galleons on Avery, please,” Harry told the man who came forward.</p><p>The man nodded and handed him a slip of paper, before moving along.</p><p>“Gambling is a bad habit,” Snape said, while pulling out his own pouch and pulling some gold out. He made his own bet, on Brown instead.</p><p>Harry grinned.</p><p>“BOTH WIZARDS HAVE AGREED TO A BASIC DUEL. PLEASE, STAY IN YOUR SEATS DURING THE DUEL. WE HAVE ATTENDANTS STANDING BY TO PROTECT YOU IN CASE OF ANY SPIRALING SPELLS OR DEBRIS!”</p><p>The two wizards on the floor stood, now, about twelve feet from each other. The man talking started to step backward. He climbed up a tall chair and sat on top before he began to talk again.</p><p>“WE START ON 3!”</p><p>People started to scream, somehow, even louder. He saw a witch point her wand in the air and start shooting out sparks, while she shook her head and screeched.</p><p>“3!”</p><p>Brown readied his wand.</p><p>“2!”</p><p>Avery held his wand up the same.</p><p>“1!”</p><p>The duel that commenced was nothing short of amazing to watch; Brown and Avery shot off a rapid-fire of spells that blurred together. Colors all along the spectrum, giant bolts bouncing off invisible shields and birds pulsing out of the tips of wands to start spitting fire. He could see their mouths moving as they cast spells, but he couldn’t hear them over the noise of the crowd.</p><p>Brown cast a spell that sent giant flames racing towards Avery and Avery returned with a similar blast, sending the fire back at Brown in a large wave.</p><p>Then, Brown pointed his wand at the ground and sent the earth shaking. Giant cracks formed and chunks of earth started to float upwards. He sent each block at Avery, who blasted every piece into rubble.</p><p>As the duel went on, Harry could see them both wearing down and getting tired. The intensity of their spells went down.</p><p>Suddenly, Brown shot forward and cast a spell while Avery was deflected a yellow bolt of light that scorched the ground where it landed. The spell hit Avery in the chest and he went flying back, flipping through the air.</p><p>Another spell and Avery was held up in the air, hands in the air.</p><p>People were screaming.</p><p>“REMEMBER FOLKS, THE DUEL ISN’T OVER UNTIL A WAND IS OUT OF HAND!” The man at the chair shouted.</p><p>Just as he said that Avery pointed his wand at himself and he came falling down. When he hit the ground, he rolled and sprung back up in just in time to deflect another spell from Brown.</p><p>Brown went off in rapid-fire. Spells shot from his spells so quickly, Harry was sure the only thing that was slowing him down was having to cast each individual one. Quicker than anything yet shown, the bolts of white just continued to slam all around Avery as he deflected the spells.</p><p>Avery cast a spell, shockingly, not from his wand, but from his left hand. The bolt came swinging around and Brown deflected it, but he missed a bolt of red streaming out of Avery’s wand.</p><p>It hit Brown and his wand went flying through the hair.</p><p>The crowd erupted.</p><p>“FOLKS, WE HAVE A WINNER!”</p><p>Harry grinned and looked at Snape. “I won!”</p><p>“You did,” Snape said. “Are you going to invest in the next match?”</p><p>Harry definitely did.</p><p>Every match seemed more amazing than the last. Some people fought more than once. By luck and luck alone, Harry won most of the bets he placed. At the end of the tournament, Harry had made a profit of twenty-two galleons, three sickles, and one knut. He felt very proud of it, even if he knew it was just luck that enabled him to win because he didn’t actually know any of the people dueling.</p><p>When they finally exited the tent, the sun was beginning to set.</p><p>“Time to take you back,” Snape said.</p><p>Harry hesitantly nodded. “Thank you for taking me here,” He said.</p><p>Snape reached out and put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. He squeezed it and said, “Happy Birthday, Harry,” Then they were Apparating away.</p>
<hr/><p>The night of Harry Potter’s birthday, Severus returned to his office with the intentions of drinking a glass of firewhiskey.</p><p>Harry’s eyes were so much like his mother’s. They lit up in a similar way watching people duel. It reminded him of the first match they went to together. Severus had spent a summer working in Diagon Alley, saying up every knut until he was able to buy them both tickets. It had been an amazing day. It ignited something in Lily, too, who was captured by the duels and the spells.</p><p>She was a fierce witch. It made him sad, even now nearly ten years later, that she would never grace the world with her full potential. She ended as a mother-figure and that was all she seemed to be remembered as, by anyone. Lily, the mother of the Boy-Who-Lived. Lily, the wife to James Potter. Everyone, other than him, that truly knew her have joined her in the afterlife.</p><p>Harry’s laugh sounded somewhat like his mother’s, too. Enough so that it nearly made Severus’ chest hurt.</p><p>For a brief moment, sitting in the stands, he had been able to close his eyes and imagine that it was Lily herself sitting next to him again, laughing in delight as a man got hit with a Blasting Spell.</p><p>However, despite Harry’s similarities, he was still his own person.</p><p>Severus sat down at his desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. He grabbed his bottle of firewhiskey and a glass.</p><p>What made it easier to accept Harry as a person was the fact that he didn’t seem very much like his father, beyond looks. He burned with an intensity most similar to Lily’s, though it seemed more curious and less kind. Lily had always pitied the loser. Harry seemed to take more delight in a crushing loss, laughing even brighter when someone was hit with something particularly hard to brush off. He had his father’s hair and eyesight, but he also lacked the aristocratic arrogance that James had. He was more inquisitive than either Lily or James. He was also quieter and more content to watch, versus talking or befriending. He treated his familiar, a half-kneazle, more like a friend than a pet. He appreciated Severus’ doing the same and was happy with the dish given to her to snack on.</p><p>It seemed, indeed, that the boy might just end up in his House. If not Slytherin, certainly Hufflepuff judging by the small shines of kindness and loyalty shown to his familiar.</p><p>Severus poured himself a drink and thought about his old friend, who mothered this child. A child who didn’t ask a single question about her, despite knowing that Severus knew her.</p><p>Lily Evans, the girl who captured his heart. It hadn’t been her fault that they broke apart. He allowed his own emotions to drag him further down. He shouldn’t have done most of the things he did. He used his broken heart as an excuse to act like a broken man. He was, really, just a boy suffering from love sickness. It had been his fault that she would die, because of the decisions he made and the loyalty he gave to a man who didn’t deserve it.</p><p>He should’ve shown more loyalty to his friend. He should’ve done more than he ever did.</p><p>As he drank from his glass, he knew he had a chance to right his wrongs.</p><p>Severus would take care of her son the best he can. He’d help him succeed and recognize his potential. Any child of Lily’s was surely to have great potential inside of them, and so far Harry hadn’t disappointed. Severus could see something in the young wizard.</p><p>As he finished the glass, he knew, also, he would have to thank Minerva for making him go out today with the boy.</p><p>Severus poured himself another glass and began to hope that the boy would, indeed, land in his House.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know, right? Two chapters in one day? That's definitely some wild shit. Reason is, uh, I split some shit up because they just needed to be. As I edit over, I realized my timeline was warped in the process of my editing, if that makes any sense? So I'm trying to fix some stuff up so it like makes sense while still achieving what I want to happen. </p><p>Just so everyone knows - this story will only be in the summer. I'll be continuing it after that, but this part is only for the summer of 1991 as Harry is led up to his time at Hogwarts. Once I'm done editing this, I'll start working on the next part and go through what I did for this one just to make sure the quality is where I want it to be. Or, like, as good as I can make it lmfao </p><p>I know we're coming to the end soon! I have about 4k left to edit that'll probably triple out by the time I'm done with it. I put up 10 chapters because I honestly haven't decided yet how I'm going to split up what's left. We're just going to see where it goes. The next couple days might be a little dry because I have practice, but I'm hoping to have this part marked as completed within the next week.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Freedom, Incoming?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry hated to leave his room for food, but when he woke up the day after his birthday his stomach was rolling with hunger. He forced himself to get dressed and hesitantly left his room.</p><p>Hedwig and the snake were both left behind, of course. His snake was resting because after getting back last night, it went out hunting and Hedwig helped it catch a big bird. They must have split it, because Hedwig had no interest in her food and the snake was resting underneath the warmth of his body until he got out of bed. It migrated to underneath Hedwig when he was getting dressed.</p><p>Downstairs, Harry ate an egg sandwich served out on a plastic plate and drank a carton of milk. It satisfied his hunger enough that he quickly disposed of the plate. He was able to talk his way into an extra milk carton. He opened the carton and began to drink it as he exited the cafeteria, when he was stopped.</p><p>Madam Charlotte appeared right before him, frowning, as he left the room.</p><p>“Um, hello ma’am,” He greeted politely. He took a hesitant step back. Showing fear wasn’t good with her. She took it as a sign of guilt. It was still difficult to not feel something, though.</p><p>“Potter, I believe you’ll be leaving in a month?” She asked.</p><p>Harry nodded. “First of September, ma’am,”</p><p>“You were gone for most of yesterday,” She said. “Someone told me they saw you at the station in town with a man,”</p><p>“Did they?” Harry asked.</p><p>People didn’t tell on him anymore, not like they used to. Throwing blame for things he didn’t do. If someone did say he did something, in recent times ever since the last big incident, it wasn’t ever anything that could be proven against him.</p><p>He wondered if she had seen him.</p><p>“I was visited by a friend of my mother’s,” He said. “That’s not bad, is it?”</p><p>“No, I suppose not,” She said. “Go on, boy,”</p><p>When Harry got back to his room, he immediately began to hide things. He stuffed everything he could into his trunk. What he couldn’t fit, he put into his bag. He pried off a floorboard, to a hiding spot he hadn’t touched in a long time. There he hid away Hedwig’s food and dishes.</p><p>“Snake,” He called.</p><p>Underneath Hedwig, the snake slithered out. “What?” It crankily asked.</p><p>“I need you to hide in here,” Harry said. “I think I might have my room inspected soon. They can’t find you,”</p><p>The snake obediently went into the hiding spot. Harry made it softer, grabbing one of his shirts from his dresser and laying it around the snake. Making it more comfortable, and possibly a little more warm.</p><p>He put the board back into place.</p><p>Harry was convincing Hedwig into his pillow when he heard a knock.</p><p>“We’re coming in!”</p><p>Hedwig wriggled out of his hands and shot to the window. As the door opened, she jumped right out the open window. Harry’s heart lurched.</p><p>He wanted to look out and see if she landed safely, but the door was already opening.</p><p>Madam Charlotte, followed by Henryson and Miller, two of the other workers at the children’s home and her favorite lackeys.</p><p>“Wait outside, Potter,” Madam Charlotte ordered.</p><p>He obeyed, stepping out of his room where he stood right beside the door. He glanced back in. He couldn’t see Hedwig anywhere inside, but he hadn’t seen her leave either. The others at the home came by, looking fearfully inside of Harry’s room. Some peaked outside of their doors.</p><p>If Madam Charlotte was checking one room, chances were she would use her already gathered resources to go through more.</p><p>They ransacked his room in the most polite manner possible. His clothes were shoved to the side as they went through his dresser drawers. When they opened up his trunk, they destroyed what little organization he had inside of it, thankfully not looking at any of the book titles and somehow missing the cauldron and crystal vials.</p><p>After ten minutes of searching, Madam Charlotte left the room with her lackeys right behind her.</p><p>“You’re clean, as usual,” Madam Charlotte said as she joined him in the hall. “I’ll find where your hiding spot eventually, Potter,”</p><p>“You’ll be looking for a long time, ma’am,” Harry said. “I don’t have a hiding spot,”</p><p>She grunted and turned direction to the room across the hall.</p><p>He went back inside and closed the door.</p><p>Heart pounding, Harry quickly went to the window and peered outside. To his relief, Hedwig was sitting calmly on the roof. When he gestured for her to come back in, she did.</p><p>The rest of the day, Harry didn’t leave his room. He couldn’t wait until he left this place and he never had to come back. He hoped that manor thing worked out for him. He hoped, too, that he’d be able to do all the paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense in order to leave the muggle world if there need be. He couldn’t imagine getting through the next many years at Hogwarts while living here.</p><p>He was sitting on his bed, the sun almost set, when an owl came flying through the window.</p><p>It wasn’t McGonagall’s owl, nor one from Gringotts.</p><p>The owl dropped a letter on the floor and flew back out the window. It had no time to stop, or at least no interest in it.</p><p>Harry marked the page in his book and slid off his bed.</p><p>The snake, where it had been lined up against his thigh, hissed angrily in complaint. It grumpily went to Hedwig, who allowed him underneath her body to continue resting.</p><p>An envelope made from old newspaper, closed with a strange glob that looked like a bunch of dried spit mixed with tar, laid in the middle of his room. He picked it up and examined it slowly, before finally picking off the strange seal. It fell off after a single scratch, hitting the ground like a very lightweight rock.</p><p>Inside, a small piece of parchment.</p><p>At the very end, a signature from—</p><p>Sirius Black.</p><p>Harry grinned.</p><p>He hadn’t been able to guess when he would finally get a response from the Azkaban inmate. Part of him wondered if he’d even be able to hear anything at all, or at least maybe he would end up waiting until he was at Hogwarts.</p><p>Still standing, Harry began to read.</p><p>
  <em>Harry,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I never thought, after James died, that I would ever, ever hear from you. I resigned myself to a lonely life in Azkaban Prison, where I belong. I never wanted to think deeply about you or the life I had before the place. It would make me too sad and too happy at once. It’s already a struggle to keep myself sane under the Dementor’s handling. I deserve this place, this punishment. Your parents did die because of me. But I need you to know that I didn’t betray James or Lily. I wasn’t the Secret Keeper. I wasn’t the one to tell You-Know-Who where they were at.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At the time, there were suspicions against me. Your parents and me were all members of an organization fighting against You-Know-Who. We knew there was a spy. People thought it was me. See, my family is an old pureblood family. Old, old blood. They’re prejudiced and cruel. With the distrust against me by them, they chose someone else. James, your father, even said sorry to me. I know he never doubted my loyalty to him, but your mother wasn’t sure.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am guilty of not fighting enough. I should’ve argued my innocence. I was the Secret keeper, your parents would still be alive. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am guilty of murder. Not just for the death of your father, but I killed Peter Pettigrew too. I killed him. He was the Secret Keeper and he betrayed your parents’ location to You-Know-Who. I don’t know how I did it. I can’t remember anymore, how I did what I did, but I killed the muggles there. I lost myself. I was mad, I was angry. I lost control. I hurt a lot of people. I’m guilty of abandonment. I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have committed the crimes I did. I should’ve stayed with you and I should’ve been with you. I should have raised you., for your father.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re my godson. I left you everything that was once mine. I hope you can use it somehow. Gringotts sent me paperwork. I signed everything away to you. Only way I’ll ever own any of it again is if I’m free, but that doesn’t matter. I won’t ever be free.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No matter what, Harry. I love you, forever. I’m sorry I failed as your godfather. I failed your parents and I failed you. But I love you so much, Harry. Please know that. Even here in Azkaban, under the Dementors, I still love you. My memories of you as a baby is what helps me keep sane now. Knowing that you’re alive, knowing that you’re happy. Please be happy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sirius Black</em>
</p><p>The parchment was slightly stained. The ink smudged. He could guess the man writing the letter had begun to cry as he wrote it.</p><p>Quietly, Harry sat down on the bed and read over the letter.</p><p>He guessed he had no way to tell if the man was lying or not. He didn’t think the tears were faked. He swore he could feel the sadness and the apology through the ink and parchment. Sirius Black could be lying.</p><p>Still, Harry couldn’t help but think.</p><p>A godfather. A man who loved him, even though that man didn’t even know him. No, he did know him. Sirius Black knew him as a baby, before his parents died.</p><p>Harry had family. Not people like the Dursley’s, who had barely tolerated him and shoved him into a cupboard. He had actual family. Someone who would want him and be—</p><p>Well, someone who would be family.</p><p>Selfishly, too, Harry bet if Sirius Black was innocent and freed from Azkaban Prison, he would have somewhere to go. No need for anything else, just a man to take him home. Family had rights. He could leave. No worries about the manor or whatever else. He didn’t care if he ended up living on the streets. At least it would be in the magical world.</p><p>The next thing he did would be impulsive, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have anything to lose.</p><hr/><p>Garrast stared across her desk at Harry Potter. The boy was quiet, arms folded, and his face determined. Not as different from other wizards and witches she’d encountered in her life. Humans were a stubborn sort. She heard other beings talk about goblins, but she was sure the most stubborn creature to live were indeed humans. Stubborn, arrogant, and needy things.</p><p>Harry wasn’t any different, but his eyes burned in a way she had only seen once before. It had been a long time ago, in a man she didn’t talk to. She only saw the wizard walk down the hall. She knew who the wizard was, now, but at the time, she had nearly stopped walking out of sudden fear. She hadn’t been the only one affected by him like that.</p><p>His eyes looked like that man's did. More than just stubborn, different than arrogance. It was demanding, not just needy. It was hard to describe, as a goblin. Their magic manifested differently than in humans. She hadn’t ever seen magic lit up in the humans’ eyes before the man and not since, not since this boy.</p><p>“Some goblins practice in wizard law,” She eventually said. “I could contact one I know, see if they’re willing to take on this work. They will want their weight in gold-“</p><p>“I have access to even my inheritance gold, right?” Harry asked.</p><p>Garrast nodded. “I just finished the paperwork. The previous owner of the accounts signed everything off, so it wasn’t any trouble,” She said.</p><p>“Then, it shouldn’t be any trouble to hire them.” Harry unfolded his arms and stared right into her eyes.</p><p>She swore her heart nearly seized. The eleven-year-old human, frightening, was a bizarre concept, but it was happening. She was scared and she didn’t even know why. Harry hadn’t done anything to show he was a dangerous individual.</p><p>“I’ll write to them and see if they’re willing to take the case. I’m sure they will. It sounds like a challenge, setting the appeal up for this man. It’ll take a couple of days before I know, but then I’ll transfer them the funds and they’ll get to work immediately.” She grabbed a piece of paper and dipped her quill into ink, before beginning to write. “I’ll need a signature to authorize the transfer of funds if they’re hired, of course,”</p><p>She finished writing out the paperwork and had him sign at the end, on the drawn line. She marked it with her signature seal then put it away. She then wrote out the letter, for the request of work, and called an assistant forward to take the letter to the owlery to send out.</p><p>As the assistant left, Garrast spoke again. “Since you’re here, I would like to mention your manor is quarter way done,”</p><p>“When is it going to be finished?” Harry asked. The burn in his eyes already vanishing. He had gotten what he wanted. Even the tension in his shoulders had gone.</p><p>She doubted the boy even knew what he was doing. Humans were strange.</p><p>“Before the start of next summer. I believe the stoneworkers are enjoying the amount of gold and freedom given to them. The manor, while not as big as others, is going to be gorgeous when completed. You’ll like it,” She said.</p><p>Harry nodded and stood up. “Is there anything else?” He asked.</p><p>She shook her head.</p><p>The boy wizard left her office. Off to do whatever young humans do, she supposed.</p><p>When she was eleven years old, she remembered sitting on her grandfather’s lap. He chose her to teach instead of any of her brothers. He said she showed more potential. He had done much in his lifetime which wasn’t acceptable for goblins to do, but he was still a master in many fields. He was an excellent goldworker and a renowned accountant, even if he had an affair with a human.</p><p>She tapped her gold-tipped fingers on the armrests of her chair.</p><p>It would be interesting to see what would happen with this boy-wizard. Regardless, he was an amazing client to have. He wasn’t stingy and trusted her when she said she had connections. Goblins liked doing work, but they demanded gold. Witches and wizards weren’t always eager to pay out their gold, though most of them just simply didn’t have it in the quantity needed.</p><p>With the addition of the vaults given to him by his godfather, Harry Potter owned a massive wealth. The gold she took and invested out into loans for starting businesses was already rewarding him. He wouldn’t have to worry about money in his entire life, even if he chose to never work.</p><p>He was a good client to have, even with as odd of a request as freeing the man who helped lead to his parent’s death.</p><p>His other request, to live in the manor he inherited, was a simple one. She connected the job of renovating and repairing the building to a goblin she knew, Rodlok. The goblin led a skilled team. When they first saw the property, they immediately began to work. Apparently, it was rather old and the original work had been done by goblins before. It was a challenge to recreate much of it. Rodlok was enjoying access to extra gold to be adventurous in his designs, too. Nothing ridiculous she was sure, but she was also sure that the property would be an extravagant one when completed.</p><p>Harry would be satisfied with it when done. He would also, certainly, be satisfied with the turnout of the investments she was handling for him.</p><p>Whether or not he would be satisfied with the work of the goblins to free his godfather, was uncertain.</p><hr/><p>
  <em>SIRIUS BLACK – INNOCENT?<br/>GOBLIN LAW EXPERTS PROVIDED BY BOY-WHO-LIVED!!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>by C.M. Nott<br/>printed 6 August 1991</em>
</p><p>
  <em>To the surprise of the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement, three days ago a team of goblins arrived at their front door demanding an appeal process. The team, consisting of three goblins and a witch from Gringotts Bank, forced the paperwork out of the Ministry’s hands to start the appeal process for the notorious Sirius Black. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Almost ten years ago, Sirius Black had given out the location to dear friends James and Lily Potter to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This killed them, but their son, Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Lived, miraculously survived. This story is, according to the goblins, only partially true. The goblins argue that Sirius Black is actually innocent and was never a Death Eater, as such his only crimes consist of murder. Murder that, possibly, was justified.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yesterday, Black was moved from Azkaban Prison to a cell in the Ministry. He will be there until his trial, starting tomorrow at noon. He’s agreed to take the truth serum, according to an insider source. His team has reportedly been meeting with Black in Azkaban previous to his move. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>More shocking than this appeal and the goblins, is who hired the goblins! Harry Potter, the boy whose parents had died at the hands of You-Know-Who due to the betrayal of their close friend, had in fact hired them through an ally at Gringotts Bank.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>An Auror at Azkaban Prison, who chooses to remain unnamed, claimed that Mr. Potter had sent the inmate a letter. According to law, Black was allowed to read the letter then send a response. Both letters were examined by Aurors to prove trustworthiness and safety while coming and going.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Is Sirius Black innocent? Or is he taking advantage of the Boy-Who-Lived’s amazing kindness and generosity?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Buy tomorrow’s afternoon paper, for more information after Black’s trial begins!</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this seems like such a short chapter? it's 3000 words so it's a good length, but still? lmfao??</p><p>It also feels like a HELLA rush??? But??? Also??? Not??? </p><p>Anyways, hope y'all enjoy</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Goodbye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wizengamot began in silence.  </p><p>The Chief Warlock, Albus Dumbledore, began the session with a clap of his hands. Members of Wizengamot members – witches and wizards who’ve won their seats by inheritance – of which there were fifty-one quieted and took their proper seats. They were adjourned in their traditional purple robes, faces all pointed at Dumbledore.</p><p>“First matter for today, the scheduled appeal trial for Sirius Black.” Dumbledore raised his hand.</p><p>An Auror left the room and returned moments later with a man, held in heavy iron chains.</p><p>The man didn’t look like he belonged in a room of well-dressed witches and wizards. The man was clothed in rags, hair long and greasy, beard untrimmed. The chains loudly clanged against each other, darkened with mud and Merlin knows what else. His face was pale and sunken in. He was thin. He was, indeed, what one would expect in the appearance of someone who had spent nearly ten years in Azkaban Prison.</p><p>He was sat in a chair in the middle of the room. The Auror hooked the chains into the chair and stepped back.</p><p>“There is a third-party representative for the defendant?” Dumbledore asked.</p><p>Sirius Black looked up, eyes dark. “I…I do have, a representative,” He said.</p><p>Another Auror brought in, then, a goblin.</p><p>“Please tell Wizengamot your name, please,” Dumbledore said.</p><p>“My name is Karlus,” The goblin announced. “I am here to represent and defend Mr. Black’s innocence. Upon a previous agreement, I would like to request the use of a truth serum to help verify Mr. Black’s claims,”</p><p>No whispers broke out. They already handled this request, so that the truth serum would be on hand. However, it had to be mentioned and brought forward vocally by either Black or his representative. It was how Wizengamot worked.</p><p>“Can an Auror please administer a truth serum, provided by us, Wizengamot?” Dumbledore looked at an Auror that held a small chest.</p><p>The Auror with the chest came forward and held it out for the goblin. Karlus opened it and pulled out a small vial. He twisted off the cork and held the vial out in front of Black’s face.</p><p>Quietly, Black opened his mouth and drank down every last drop in the vial. To prove its emptiness, the goblin gave the vial to the Auror with the chest to hand out for the members of Wizengamot to examine.</p><p>“For the purposes of this court, the truth serum administered to Mr. Black will make him vomit upon trying to tell a lie,” Dumbledore. “To prove its effect, Mr. Black, please tell us a lie,”</p><p>It took a second, but the man eventually spoke. “I have blue-“ Halfway through his sentence, he gagged and vomit – putrid smelling and acidic – came shooting out of his mouth. He gagged on it and puked again, panting heavily as it soaked into his clothes.</p><p>“The court recognizes the effects of the truth serum. I, Chief Warlock, authorize a questioning session. Would any Wizengamot members here today like to begin?” Dumbledore asked.</p><p>A blond-haired man, elderly and grey-eyed, raised his hand. He stood slowly and waited until Dumbledore permitted him to speak.</p><p>“Who are you?” The blond man asked.</p><p>“My name is Sirius Black,” He answered.</p><p>“Are you innocent of killing James and Lily Potter?” The blond man peered down, eyes squinting behind his thick glasses.</p><p>Sirius looked pained, but he answered. “I blame myself for their deaths,”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I allowed Peter Pettigrew to become the Secret Keeper,” Sirius admitted. “I should’ve fought more. James trusted me, but there were doubts against me because of my family. Old purebloods and proud of it. My cousins were Death Eaters. I was the most suspect, when they learned You-Know-Who was after them. But, James trusted me, and I should’ve fought more. I didn’t.” He started to weep.</p><p>Karlus hushed the man and placed his hand on Black’s shoulder. The man shuddered, then stilled.</p><p>“Were you aligned to the Dark Lord?” What little light there was in the room caught on the blond man’s glasses, flashing them white, as he leaned forward a little more as though he was truly getting any closer to the man chained down in the center of the room.</p><p>“I was not. Never. I wouldn’t ever choose to follow him. You-Know-Who, no, never.” Sirius shook his head.</p><p>The man leaned back. “I’m done with my questions,”</p><p>“Any other members of Wizengamot?” Dumbledore questioned.</p><p>A witch raised her hand. Dumbledore permitted her to speak, then she asked, “Mr. Black, did you kill Peter Pettigrew?”</p><p>“I did,” Sirius confessed. “He was the Secret Keeper. He betrayed James! I had to!” He pulled at his chains.</p><p>Karlus hushed the man, again.</p><p>The questioning continued. Wizengamot members took turns, often re-asking the same question. They pulled the man apart verbally until he was sweating in the chair, getting confused and angry. Eventually, they were done, and Dumbledore allowed Sirius to talk.</p><p>“Do you have any statements to make, Mr. Black?” Dumbledore asked.</p><p>“I pass it to my representative,” Sirius said.</p><p>Karlus grinned and patted the man’s shoulder roughly.</p><p>The goblin moved forward and began to stalk around the edges of the middle opening, looking over the Wizengamot members intensely.</p><p>“You’ve heard it yourself, witches, and wizards. Mr. Black is guilty only of murdering Peter Pettigrew and the muggles present. The muggles were, certainly, an accident. Something we cannot fault him for! As many Aurors during the war had killed muggles to defend themselves and their comrades. Muggles are, indeed, muggle. Numerous, needless,” The goblin paused, allowing Wizengamot to absorb his words.</p><p>Then, he continued.</p><p>“Mr. Black was sentenced to life in Azkaban for betraying the Potter family to You-Know-Who and for being an ally to You-Know-Who. He’s proven himself as innocent to both. He was charged with the death of Peter Pettigrew, which, I argue, as justified. Peter Pettigrew, a Death Eater, would’ve likely been given a life sentence in Azkaban the same unless he fought arrest. In which case, the Ministry’s Aurors certainly would’ve killed him.” As he talked, Karlus continued to walk.</p><p>“I would recommend Wizengamot to pardon Sirius for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and the unnamed muggles. Not just because of his innocence in regards to being a Death Eater, but because Mr. Black has a duty to take claim outside of Azkaban Prison!”</p><p>Karlus stopped in front of Dumbledore and turned around, giving the old wizard his back while he looked out to the rest of the court. “I was hired by Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, to free this man under the belief of his true innocence. Mr. Potter is currently living in what’s basically a muggle orphanage. He has no family, except for Sirius Black. He wants to have a family. Can you blame him? Can you refuse him? Mr. Potter has done so much for the magical world. I can’t stand the idea of him continuing on without his godfather, as without Sirius Black, Harry Potter will remain a lonely orphan,”</p><p>Wizengamot burst out into whispers. Otherwise quiet, they were now almost loud as they forgo note-passing to converse ‘quietly’ between each other.</p><p>Dumbledore clapped. “Please, silence!” He had to clap again, finally quieting the court.</p><p>“I give the rest of my time to the Chief Warlock.” Karlus returned to Sirius’ side, grin sharp.</p><p>“If there are no other questions or statements,” Dumbledore looked over the room. “I would like to call for a vote. Does Wizengamot agree to vote by consensus?”</p><p>Slowly, every Wizengamot member raised their hand.</p><p>“If you believe Mr. Black is innocent of being a Death Eater, please keep your hand up,” No hands went down. “If you agree to Karlus’ request to pardon Mr. Black to his crimes, please keep your hand up,” No hands went down. “If you wish for Mr. Black to now be freed, please keep your hand up,” No hands went down.</p><p>Dumbledore smiled.</p><p>“Henceforth, Sirius Black, you are a free man.” He clapped. “On this day, the Seventh of August, I, Chief Warlock of Wizengamot, pause session. We’ll meet tomorrow, to continue to discuss the requests filed by Karlus the goblin previous to today under the circumstance that Sirius Black would be freed,”</p><p>The man hooked in the chains on the chair, began to cry. This time, he wasn’t quieted.</p>
<hr/><p>The Daily Prophet had been selling more copies than it had in years. Ever since the fall of You-Know-Who, business had begun to slow, but in the wake of Sirius Black’s trial – the printing press wasn’t working quick enough to get copies out. People even beyond Great Britain were requesting copies, as far as in Asia.</p><p>Severus Snape had to wait an hour later than usual to read the news for the day. He borrowed another professor’s copy, who had gotten it while in Hogsmeade shortly after the trial had ended and the papers began to be sold.</p><p>On the front page, the picture of Sirius Black.</p><p>It was enough for Severus to almost feel pity for the wizard.</p><p>Sirius didn’t look like anything he had once before. His handsome features were marred by starvation and despair. He didn’t look like a freshly freed man. He looked like a man destroyed by a decade locked away into the world’s worst prison. To have been fed on by Dementors every day, for years. Severus couldn’t imagine it.</p><p>It was a fate he could’ve been easily dealt.</p><p>The faded mark on his forearm didn’t ache like it once had, but he could feel the whisper of it as he read the article on Sirius Black’s trial.</p><p>According to the author, the Ministry of Magic was being sued for wrongly imprisoning Mr. Black by the goblins appointed to represent him. Goblins, indeed, hired by Harry. It was strange to think that the boy who had gone to the dueling matches with him had managed to do so much, in such little time.</p><p>Severus was certain that a boy like Harry would end up in his House.</p><p>Minerva had admitted she was asked about sending a letter to the man, by Harry. She didn’t know how Harry even managed to send a letter. Harry had no way to London on his own, certainly, and he owned no owl of his own. Severus wondered how much the boy had to go through to get it done, or if the maneuvers around those obstacles had been easy for him to go around.</p><p>Harry was raised by muggles, but he seemed as though he was going to manage just fine.</p><p>Quiet and in his office, Severus was reading the article over and over again when he heard a knock on his door.</p><p>“Enter!” He shouted, as he picked up his bottle of firewhiskey and began to fill his glass.</p><p>“Severus,” Minerva greeted. “Already drinking?”</p><p>“Worried for the boy,” Severus said. “It seems as though Black’s going to get guardianship of Harry, once this is all over with,”</p><p>“He will,” Minerva said. She sat down on the old leather couch in front of his desk. “He’s getting what he wants, it seems,”</p><p>“What he wants isn’t necessarily what he needs.” Severus pulled another glass out and filled it, before pushing it toward Minerva.</p><p>She took the glass and downed it in a single gulp. “Another, please,” She said.</p><p>Severus poured her out another.</p><p>“I’m amazed by what he’d managed to do,” Minerva said. “But I’m worried. I can’t imagine Sirius is very sane after spending so long in Azkaban,”</p><p>“He’ll have time to repair himself while Harry’s at school,” Severus said. “Until then, they’ll have at most only a few weeks together,”</p><p>“Dumbledore wants to hire him to help Hagrid,” Minerva said. “I had to talk him out of it. I can’t believe that man, sometimes,”</p><p>“Always with the second chances,” Severus drawled.</p><p>“Always.” Minerva finished the second glass. Wordlessly, it was filled again.</p><p>“Do you feel guilt?” Severus asked.</p><p>She sighed. “I do,” She admitted. “I shouldn’t have been so quick to believe that he would ever betray James. You were in his year, you saw how he was with his friends. I suppose, I can’t believe Peter ever would’ve joined You-Know-Who…”</p><p>“The Dark Lord is capable of anything,” Severus said. “Even in convincing otherwise trustworthy people into betraying those closest to them,”</p><p>“I write to Harry every day and I haven’t asked him once about all this. I wonder how much he knows. He must know everything, considering he’s paid for those goblins to do the work they’re doing.” She looked into her glass. “He’s—”</p><p>“Amazing,” Severus finished. “I want to ask him how he managed all this. Luck, skill, both?”</p><p>“He seems less and less like his parents the more I see him act,” Minerva said. “He has bits and pieces, but I wonder if those characteristics are just coincidental,”</p><p>“If you told me a year ago, the Boy-Who-Lived would have freed the man who had supposedly led to his parents’ demise, I wouldn’t have believed it.” Severus sipped his glass. He was on his fourth, it was time for him to slow down. He was already feeling the buzz.</p><p>“I still can’t believe it,” Minerva said, then finished her glass.</p>
<hr/><p>Harry was sent updates at least twice a day since Karlus the goblin agreed to work for him, and thusly Sirius. The goblin and three others including a witch had gone through a lot of work in a very short period of time. He was surprised with how quickly they'd gotten Sirius to be revealed as innocent. Maybe, magical law just worked more efficiently than muggle law did, or maybe the case was just that solidly built for Sirius' innocence. </p><p>Through the updates, he knew everything that happened, but more importantly - through the constant coming and going of Karlus' owl, Harry was able to exchange letters with Sirius.</p><p>Sirius told him about the Dementors at Azkaban, how they fed on joy and happy memories. He thanked him repeatedly for saving him from Azkaban Prison, though at first it seemed as though the man didn't even truly believe in his own innocence and deservedness to be free. Once Sirius was safely moved into a holding cell at the Ministry of Magic, he had become happier and more sure of it though. He eagerly told Harry more than just sad things, like how he was already gaining weight with the food given by the Ministry. He talked about the witch on Karlus' team. He said she was beautiful but, sadly, unavailable for a man.</p><p>When he was deemed innocent and freed, Sirius moved into a room at the Leaky Cauldron. He was getting everything together, with Karlus, to make sure that Harry would be able to come home with him. He apologized for taking back the inheritance he had so recently given to Harry, but happily told him he already had a house in mind for them to live in until the manor that belonged to Harry would be completed.</p><p>Over the course of a week, Sirius’ handwriting seemed to have improved. He could guess it was the effects of the Dementors leaving and the effects of being free enabling the recovery. He said, in every letter, that he would be coming soon to get Harry. Though he was starting to get impatient, he tried hard not to just count down every day.</p><p>So much had happened, Sirius said, that he could hardly believe it. Harry almost couldn't either, but he was still happy.</p><p>He was going to have family and he was going to be free from the children’s home.</p><p>Then, one day, Harry woke up the sound of knocking at the door. He slowly dragged himself out of bed and went to answer the noise, feeling upset, but having no choice. It was probably Madam Charlotte angry at him for something he didn’t do.</p><p>“Hello, Harry,”</p><p>A man stood right outside the door, Madam Charlotte behind. The man looked energetic despite the bags under his eyes and, strangely, casual even in a set of brand new, fine, black robes. It didn’t take very much deducing before Harry realized who the man was.</p><p>Harry lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Sirius. He couldn’t believe it, even though he had spent so much gold to get this to happen. The happiness burning in his chest – he didn’t even fully understand it. He didn’t know this man, not really, but Sirius symbolized something important; Freedom from the children’s home, freedom from the non-magical world.</p><p>Sirius laughed and hugged back, lifting Harry up in the process. “Come on kid, I’m taking you home,” He said.</p><p>“Really?” Harry asked as he was let go.</p><p>“Yup!” Sirius leaned down and whispered, “I was able to convince a couple of Aurors to come to help me out. I need to get a new wand yet and all. Someone needed to do all that fancy work, yeah?”</p><p>“Fancy work?” Harry suddenly noticed the dazed look in Madam Charlotte’s eyes.</p><p>“You know, confusing and making the muggles do stuff. Also, uh, making sure no one gets in trouble for you completely disappearing off the muggle’s radar,” Sirius said. “Don’t worry, the spells don’t hurt them,”</p><p>Sirius helped Harry pack his things. He laughed when Hedwig sat on Harry’s shoulder and ruffled the boy’s hair. The Aurors came in and helped carry his trunk out.</p><p>It was in the middle of August 1991 when Harry Potter bid farewell to Hermes’ Home for Children. He hoped he wouldn’t ever have to see the muggle world again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>EDIT: Hey!! The sequel is still being made and it's still going to be published, sorry it's taking me so long. I still haven't decided how I'm going to make the second part end, since there will be a minimum of eight different parts. This piece has, essentially, served almost like a prequel short story for what's coming. I'm sorry for those of you looking forward to it! It'll be finished, just might not be finished until I have a truly extended period/break off from school like next summer. Just an update!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>